News

Investigators surprised by unusual lab fire

Power supply for soil testing will cost $10,000 to replace, coming out of laboratory budget

By Sean Hladick

Posted on April 14, 2008, at 12:00 a.m.

After evaluating the damage from the fire in Deering Hall last Tuesday, repair costs will be approximately $25,000, including parts and labor.

The power supply on the Emission Spectrometer, used for soil analysis which is valued at $100,000, caught fire in building’s laboratory in room 407.

“It will be a big impact for sure,” said Laboratory Director Sue Erich, about the loss of the machine. “We constantly use it, the biggest percentage of our samples are analyzed with it.”

Originally it was thought that the power cube’s transformers had overheated, leading to the fire, but as the investigation continues, the answer appears more complicated.

According to the Director of Safety and Environmental Management Wayne Maines, the melting within the power supply is located away from the transformers and has investigators baffled. In the days leading up to the fire, Erich indicated they had been experiencing problems with the power supply and the lab workers had been troubleshooting with the manufacturer, but no one expected a fire.

Technicians are being brought in from Massachusetts to help solve the mystery; the machine’s manufacturer told Maines they have never seen this problem before.

To replace the power supply, the Analytical Laboratory and Maine Soil Testing Service will likely pay a $10,000 insurance deductible to get the machine running.

It will take approximately two weeks until the machine is working again, leaving the lab with an older, back-up model that will slow down their work considerably.

“This is beginning to be our busy time of the year,” said Erich. “It wasn’t really good timing.”

The $10,000 will come out of the lab’s budget, comprised of federal funds from the university and money raised independently from soil samples sent to the lab for analysis.

Erich cited the quick response time by the Orono Fire Department as crucial in confining the damage to the machine’s power supply.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008, 12:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.