Eight Engines Called to Eliot House; 200 Students See Blaze

Eight Cambridge fire engines were called to Eliot House yesterday to quench a raging fire in the first floor room of Seth M. Agnew '43.

Agnew was not at his room when the conflagration started, and it remained for a passerby to give the alarm. The fire department arrived on the scene only after having answered a false alarm from near Dudley House.

After failing in an attempt to enter the room through the door, the fire-fighters broke in through the windows. When the smoke had cleared from the room, a burning couch and the other furnishings were carried out, and the fire quickly burned itself out.

The hero of the occasion was an unindentifled clergyman who rushed into the burning room and dragged the flaming draps outside to the applause of several hundred students who had gathered around.

According to the Maintenance Department the loss from the fire was about $350. The cause has not yet been determined but the police said that it was probably "careless disposal of a cigarette." University officials suggested it might have been due to faulty wiring.