Hot Beam Ignites Adams 'B'

Eight Adams House residents were driven from their rooms on Saturday morning when a fire broke out between the third and fourth floors of "B" entry.

Louis L. Miller '56 of Adams B-46 noticed the fire when he saw smoke coming up through his floorboards. He mentioned it to the janitor, who, upon sober reflection, decided to call the fire department. The fire was cornered in a wooden beam between the two floors and while several firemen cut holes in the ceiling of the bottom room, others pried up the floor of the top room. They met in the middle.

Fire officials said that sparks from the fourth floor fireplace caused the fire. For some time, the sparks had been falling into a crack in the floor near the fire-place. They landed on the huge wooden beam which constitutes the main support of the building's upper reaches.

Over a period of years, the source added, the sparks "carbonized" the beam into a piece of charcoal. On Friday night, more sparks hit the beam and finally ignited it. Fire officials said that the damaged beam would have to be replaced.