Minor Blaze Singes JFK St. Restaurant

A minor fire yesterday morning on the roof of the Bombay Club Indian restaurant was extinguished before causing damage or injuries.

Vinod Kapoor, owner of the Galleria Mall restaurant, said the fire was caused by a "short circuit in the exhaust fan's motor." He said that the fire occurred immediately after the cooks turned on the fan yesterday morning.

However, Bob Bracey, a Cambridge health inspector, said that poorly cleaned ducts failed to allow grease to escape, leading to the fire.

At 10:10 a.m., the Cambridge Fire Department arrived at the scene.

Kapoor said the building manager put out the flames before the fire department arrived, but that there was still a lot of smoke.

There was little damage to the restaurant and no injuries. Kapoor said the fan would be replaced tomorrow.

"It's a good thing that it happened before lunch so they could stay open," Bracey said.

Joseph C. Tse, president of Oriental Tours and Travel, a business that shares the top floor of the Galeria Mall with the Bombay Club, said that nothing of this nature had ever occurred before.

"One time they had leaky pipes, but nothing to this magnitude," said Tse.