The last time McKinley Hall saw flames in the building was when a microwave caught fire a few years ago after someone put their lunch in the microwave for 30 minutes instead of three.

However, rows of fire trucks and university police cars were lined up outside McKinley — where Wichita State’s chemistry classes are held — Monday and Tuesday.

“Nothing’s going to burn down,” said David Eichhorn, professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry at WSU.

An autoclave, a pressure chamber used to sterilize equipment and materials for experiments, released enough steam Monday and Tuesday to reach a smoke detector, Eichhorn said. 

The autoclave was unplugged overnight Tuesday, Eichhord said.

 “The incident [Monday] occurred while a service person was testing the instrument to make sure that nothing was malfunctioning,” he said in an email. 

Once again, steam of a high temperature reached a smoke detector, causing it go off and alerting fire crews.

The sights and sounds of emergency personal on campus set off a series of yaks on campus:

“Fire alarm going off in chem building. Who blew something up?” one person posted on the popular Yik Yak app, an anonymous social media feed.

“Why are the wsu police speeding through campus?”

“They just like making small issues to big scenes.”

“Hopefully Shocker Hall is not on fire because I just laid down to take a nap.”

To which someone replied: “Nah. You’re good.”

Although this is the first time the chemistry department has had this problem, Eichhord said, “there was no malfunction.”

The department plans to work with WSU’s fire safety officials to better ventilate the space. University police and fire safety are “keeping an eye on it,” police chief Sara Morris said.

“I think there’s some pretty simple things we can do short term,” Eichhord said. “We’re pretty cognizant of trying to stay safe.”