Wednesday August 8 12:02 AM ET

CIA Evacuates Headquarters Building Due to Fire

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The building at CIA headquarters where the offices of the spy agency's top officials are located was evacuated on Tuesday due to a fire that sent smoke billowing through the structure, a CIA spokesman said.

CIA Director George Tenet was not inside the building at the time of the fire, which was detected at about 5:45 p.m. EDT. It was the first time in memory that the main original headquarters building was fully evacuated due to a fire, CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said.

Fairfax County authorities in Virginia were investigating the cause, which had not yet been determined. Fire engines came to the scene as employees streamed out of the white structure.

The building also houses the CIA's 24-hour operations center which keeps in touch with the agency's overseas offices and gathers information around the clock on any developments around the globe that may be a national security concern.

The CIA alerted the White House situation room prior to evacuation and it provided backup for about two hours until the CIA was able to set up a temporary operations center elsewhere on the compound in suburban Virginia, Mansfield said.

``They monitor the same information as we do,'' he said.

``It is not going to affect our current intelligence production,'' Mansfield added.

The President's Daily Brief, which the CIA delivers early in the morning to the president and a small group of high-level government officials, detailing the most current developments in various parts of the world, would be produced as usual, he said.

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001