Damages, cleanup and rebuilding costs related to the July 23 fire in Frederick Reines Hall will total as much as $3.5 million, according to UC Irvine officials.

A breakdown in costs includes:

• $1 million for damages, which include cleanup costs;

• $1 million to replace laboratory and research equipment;

• An estimated $1.2 million to $1.5 million to rebuild the two laboratories destroyed in the fire. The laboratories will be ready for use by spring 2002.

Reines Hall is one of the two major research buildings in the School of Physical Sciences, housing laboratories, offices and research facilities for the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Physics and Astronomy. It was named for Frederick Reines, a UCI professor who received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physics for his research on neutrinos.

The UCI School of Physical Sciences offers some of the nation's finest research programs in chemistry, physics, mathematics and Earth system science. Among the faculty, which includes six National Academy of Science members, is world-renowned atmospheric chemist F. Sherwood Rowland, who received the Nobel Prize in 1995.