EC Fire Ruled not Arson
EC Fire Ruled not Arson
The trash chute fire at East Campus on Sept. 8 has been ruled not arson by the Cambridge Fire Department (CFD), according to MIT spokesman Nathaniel W. Nickerson.
Nickerson said that the CFD communicated this preliminary determination to the MIT Police, though the CFD’s investigation technically remains open for another month or so, to allow for additional information to come to light.
Cambridge Fire representatives declined to comment on the still-ongoing investigation.
The fire occurred in a trash chute around 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday Sept. 8, and a report released by Cambridge Fire the following week said, “We found a lighter inside trash container, on top of the trash.”
The fire did not damage any property directly, but sprinklers released water that flooded several students’ rooms, resulting in several thousand dollars in property damage, The Tech estimates.
—John A. Hawkinson