Lamont False Alarm

Two simultaneous false fire alarms in Lamont Library yesterday sent 150 to 200 people out into the ten-degree weather after a smoke detector in the second-floor smoking room was triggered and someone pulled an alarm on the sixth floor.

Jane R. Morhardt, assistant to the Lamont librarian, said yesterday, "Apparently, someone put a cigarette under the smoke detector, setting it off, and then someone heard the warning and pulled the alarm on the sixth floor."

"There was a fair amount of smoke in the smoking room, but the detector may have been more sensitive than usual," Frank E. Lamentea, the library's assistant business manager, said yesterday.

Morhardt said evacuation is the typical procedure followed when an alarm is pulled, but he added the library staff is trained in the use of fire extinguishers to put out small local fires.

James U. Rafferty, captain of the Cambridge fire department, reset the alarm and students were then allowed to reenter the building.