Nottingham University Fire.

[Inequs]

Looked out of my window only to see this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms0ssAmc_X4
Not my usual view in the evening for sure

[Inequs]

Likewise.
I guess more will be known when its released on the news.

[MerinPally]

I'm a student there too.

My friends live opposite the Jaguar garage (which is directly behind it). I just wandered over there earlier and took pictures. This sucks especially because I'm a chemistry student, the building that burnt down is a £15 million (I think) place built to be environmentally friendly and paid for by GlaxoSmithKline. I moved back here yesterday and now 24 hours later, this happens.

I'm quite upset because I was hoping that maybe I could do my 4th year project in there, as were some of my friends as a bunch of us chem folk went to watch. We saw a BBC news crew running around, loads of firefighters, a bunch of police sorting traffic and huge queues of students watching. You can see the plumes from far away and all the smoke, I live ~10minute walk away and you can see the smoke and it all lighting up. After a little while I watched one of the top guys in the chem department, Professor John McMaster appear looking concerned (obviously) and he took some pictures before walking over to talk to the police.

Needless to say that me and all my other chemistry friends are absolutely gutted.

Here's a statement come out 45 minutes ago.

Official statement from Dr Paul Greatrix, Registrar at The University of Nottingham: "Firefighters are currently on site dealing with a major fire at our GSK sustainable chemistry building on Jubilee Campus.

"Thankfully, there have been no casualties as this is a building that was still under construction. Our number one priority is to ensure that the fire does not spread to other buildings in the vicinity and we are grateful to the fire teams on site who have worked extremely hard to contain the blaze.

"Tomorrow we are due to welcome prospective students and their families to Nottingham for our Open Day and we would like to stress that this is still going ahead as planned."

Here is a picture taken by a CCTV camera at the site, with trees for scale. They aren't massive trees but they're a little big for saplings. Those things in between them at the bottom center are stone benches.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.n...cc37597a615b46

And here's an album of pictures I took myself. The first one isn't though that's an image a friend took and uploaded to facebook. The rest were done on my phone.

http://imgur.com/a/21oTg

[Inequs]

Even at the distance I was when i pointed my camera at it, could just about feel the heat from it.
I'm not sure how long it had been aflame when I noticed the fact my darkened room was being lit up bright orange and grabbed the camera.

[MerinPally]

Think my mates said about 9-9:30, that's when I got a snapchat about it at least because they knew I'd think "oh shit".

Can see it from their house, loads of people standing outside watching.

[BloodyAngel12]

Got a couple of friends doing Chem stuff there and they are gutted.

[Notchris]

I expected some smoke and a little flame. Not a gargantuan raging inferno.

That's nuts.

[luc54]

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/estates/...ments/csc.aspx
is the building that apparently and the webcams also so live web cam picture of the scene. You indeed see how massive the flame is from these.

[Deleted]

Any thoughts as to the cause of the fire?

[MerinPally]

I expected some smoke and a little flame. Not a gargantuan raging inferno.

That's nuts.

Yeah, I'm sad Was police tape everywhere they weren't letting people anywhere near.

It's on Jubilee Campus which is not the main part of the university (University Park) but like the rest of Notts uni it's greener than many parks, just google it - wins awards every year about how naturific it is. Fields of flowers, some left to grow, others are all displays. Trees lining the roads, stone paths, benches and everything. All of Jubilee Campus is like that and large swathes of UP. With the size of this fire and a load of buildings around it, there's concern about stopping it spreading - the building is completely beyond any salvation. Fortunately this one is a little further away than many so is not at major risk of getting to all the flora but there's quite a few buildings nearby.

- - - Updated - - -

Any thoughts as to the cause of the fire?

Not yet, my facebook is being flooded though. A few friends work for Impact Magazine which is the student run journalist thing. I haven't got any emails about it, wonder if I will in the coming week.

[Bakis]

Well that suck and I never trusted chemists, this is why.

[Inequs]

Any thoughts as to the cause of the fire?

I'm gonna reserve judgement on the cause, looking at it now the destruction looks pretty complete at merely 3-4h.

[Deleted]

I hope nobody was caught in the fire, and sucks for the people going to school at that place. I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that that is a lot of money going up in smoke...

[Deleted]

Trent student here, hope noones hurt, luckily its not term time / freshers week just yet for Uni Of, right?

[MerinPally]

Trent student here, hope noones hurt, luckily its not term time / freshers week just yet for Uni Of, right?

Nah that's next week. People move in to their halls on Sunday 21st I believe with freshers beginning 22nd. Noone's hurt the building was empty, was still under construction and the workers had already gone home.

I'm not gona cry foul play or anything it could obviously be a mistake but if it was done by a person then they would have had to try very hard. The wall around this building was not close to it, there was a very large gap all around it between those panels they put up. If it's someones action that wasn't a builder accidentally fucking up during the day, then you would have had to try quite hard in order to get fire over there. Walked past it many times. It's not as if someone could have dropped or thrown a fag butt. Not at my last look anyway.

[Miyani]

Never had a fire at Uni but when i was at Hull uni up north we did have an earthquake and our dorm was flooded in the 2006 floods, we had to swim under neither the door to get into the block if we wanted access.

[BloodyAngel12]

When i was at Derby Uni we had a serial arsonist that kept on setting waste paper bins on fire.

[Notchris]

I'm gonna reserve judgement on the cause, looking at it now the destruction looks pretty complete at merely 3-4h.

Yeah. I'm watching the live feed. It's just a mangled pile of rubble and a towering inferno now. You can see the fire department hosing it, just looks so futile.

At least there seems to have been no one in it.

[Bakis]

Shitty timing, worst timing possible(since it was empty) now they will have to do without an entire building for probably 1+ year.

[MerinPally]

I like this despite the tragedy, it's like being an onsite reporter. Tempted to go back there at dawn.

Shitty timing, worst timing possible(since it was empty) now they will have to do without an entire building for probably 1+ year.

Easily, that thing was in the works end of my first year and I'm about to begin my third. I stayed in halls on Jubilee Campus so I walked past the area a fair bit and then did so again last year. Fortunately we have another chemistry building which we've used for years. I don't know if I'd call it "sufficient" from a research point of view because simply put I don't know, but people seem to have managed all these years but then it's growing. This one was mainly for PhD's and general research labs I believe. I hope it won't set their schedules too far out of order, assuming they made plans.

- - - Updated - - -

A new statement from the university came out a bit ago, regarding last night. This morning they were still spraying water on it, I don't know how big the fire was but it was still smouldering to a level they had to keep going. I imagine it was going all night. When I arrived yesterday most of the building was still standing just engulfed, and then when I left I watched the top floor collapse (with the main structural beams still up). This morning it barely reaches the top of the wall they have around it, whole thing went down.

The University of Nottingham’s Registrar Dr Paul Greatrix said: “We can confirm that a major fire at our Jubilee Campus on the evening of Friday September 12 has completely destroyed our new GlaxoSmithKline Carbon Neutral Laboratory for Sustainable Chemistry which was under construction.

“We are incredibly grateful to our staff and students for their fantastic response in dealing with this major incident and would like to express our gratitude to Notts Fire Service. It was the quick action of their fire crews which prevented this incident from being much more serious. We have also been extremely touched by the messages and best wishes from our close neighbours out in the community.

“We would like to thank the wider higher education community across the UK for its support – we have had many offers of help from other universities around the country, for which we are extremely grateful.

“To put this loss into perspective, we need to remember that this was one building, that thankfully no one was injured and that the fire was prevented from spreading further on to campus.

“We want to stress that it is business as usual at The University of Nottingham. Our Open Day 2014, to which we will be welcoming thousands of prospective students and their families is going ahead as planned and will be unaffected by the incident. Our ability to deliver teaching and research through our Chemistry department is completely unaffected by this incident.

This is a setback for us but one from which we have no doubt we will recover. The University of Nottingham has an international reputation for scientific excellence, underpinned by the world-leading expertise of our academics. It is upon those strong foundations that we will rebuild and renew for the future.

The GlaxoSmithKline Carbon Neutral Laboratory for Sustainable Chemistry is a landmark building which is the embodiment of the University’s commitment to sustainability in all its forms, particularly in the area of green chemistry and we will be working closely with our partners at GSK, and the contractors Morgan Sindall, to develop a positive plan of action for rebuilding.