Midnight Fire Nipped After Elusive Chase

A smouldering blaze led firemen on a merry 30-minute chase up and down stairs at 12:20 this morning before it was located and put out in the basements of Hazen's Restaurant and the Personal Bookshop. Total damage was estimated at $1000.

Several hundred shivering students cheered the smoke-eaters as they lofted ladders and spotlights to the top floor of Little Hall, smashed in the front door of the book store, and evacuated all resident students from the Massachusetts Avenue block.

Students in Little Hall had detected smoke as early as 11 pm. They called University maintenance men, who searched vainly for an hour before summoning the fire department.

Although the smouldering partitions were barely a foot away from sprinkler pipes, none of these had been set off by the heat. Faulty wiring was blamed for the incident.

Barriers were still up in front for Little Hall where maintenance men are repairing gas mains that broke less than a month ago and threatened students at that time.