There were no injuries and minimal damage in a small fire on Wednesday evening in an eighth-floor chemistry lab in the Mellon Institute on Fifth Avenue in Oakland, Pittsburgh firefighters said.
Acting deputy fire chief Larry Yakich said a Carnegie Mellon University professor and student had completed some tests, cleaned up, put a chemical inside a container and placed the container in a plastic-lined cardboard box. There apparently was some chemical residual on the container and it reacted with the liner or the cardboard to start the box on fire shortly after 7 p.m., Yakich said.
The professor and student used an extinguisher to put out the fire that burned the top of the cardboard box, Yakich said.
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