The Mayer Campus Center was shut down yesterday evening after smoke spread throughout the building due to an elevator machinery malfunction.
The campus center elevator's hydraulic oil overheated and smoked, creating a pungent smell throughout the building, according to the Tufts University Police Department (TUPD). No actual fire was reported, nor were any injuries, TUPD Capt. Mark Keith said.
The Somerville Fire Department responded to the incident.
People streamed out of the campus center when the fire alarm sounded around 5:30 p.m. yesterday. The building was closed down so that it could be ventilated, according to TUPD Sgt. Robert McCarthy; large fans were placed in the campus center.
McCarthy said yesterday that the building would most likely remain closed throughout the night and reopen today.
When the fire alarm originally went off, senior Jaya Birch−Desai was at a dinner in the campus center's Zamparelli Room, prior to last night's Lyon & Bendheim Lecture.
"We didn't really see anything, but as soon as we left the room you could smell something," Birch−Desai said. "It smelled like an electrical fire. It wasn't like somebody was barbecuing something on the grill and it was burning — it was very distinct."
She said the dinner moved to Dewick−MacPhie Dining Hall due to the evacuation.
Senior Holly Stewart was attending a meeting at the campus center for Tufts Timmy Foundation when the alarm went off. Like Birch−Desai, she went to Dewick to eat dinner.
Stewart said she initially thought the alarm was for a fire drill but eventually realized that was not the case.
Andrea Ness, a senior, also did not see smoke when the alarm went off.
"I thought it had gone off by mistake," she said, "because nothing seemed out of the ordinary to me."
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by Ben Gittleson, with reporting contributed by Alexandra Bogus and Meredith Klein
