A fire broke out this afternoon in the Parsons Building, the home of the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, The University Times has learned.
The fire brigade was called to the scene but no serious damage appears to have been done. Students were asked to evacuate the building for 45 minutes until the situation was deemed safe.
In an email statement to The University Times, the College Press Officer, Caoimhe Ní Lochlainn, said that “there was a minor incident in the Parson’s Building at lunchtime, the fire brigade was called as a precautionary measure”.
In an email statement to The University Times, David Simonian, the President of Trinity Engineering Society (Eng Soc) and one of the students evacuated from the building, said that “the place still smells like burning”.
Simonian said he didn’t know “exactly what caught fire”.
Eng Soc posted a photo on Facebook two hours ago, showing fire engines parked outside Parsons building. “As the term comes to a close and exams approach, even the Parsons building itself is feeling the heat”, a caption accompanying the photo read.
In an email statement to The University Times, Daniel O’Reilly, the Secretary of Eng Soc, said “two fire engines arrived on the scene” after the fire alarm went off in the building.
“There was a smell of burning outside during the incident and those entering the building afterwards say the smell has persisted”, O’Reilly said.
“The people who had been inside had to wait outside for roughly 45 minutes before being let back in, but as far as the Engineering Society are aware, no one was injured.”
The Parsons Building is named after Charles Parsons, an Anglo-Irish engineer born in Offaly and the inventor of the Parsons turbine. Parsons studied mathematics in Trinity in the late 1800s.
Writing in The University Times in September, the College Bursar, Veronica Campbell, said the Parsons Building will be refurbished as part of the creation of the new Engineering, Environment and Emerging Technologies (E3) Institute.
The project will see the old biochemistry building, Robert’s Laboratory and the PC huts demolished in the summer of 2019.
