Phew: the National Museum of Natural History reopened to the public around 10:45 a.m. this morning after a fire broke out near the museum. Museum staff had been evacuated from the main building after smoke started billowing out of a nearby structure, but no injuries or damage to artifacts in the museum were reported. The fire was reportedly caused by some welding work being done on the roof of a detached building which holds the museum’s cooling equipment — the heavy smoke was apparently due to the fire interacting with “plastics.”