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The Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE) suffered three separate laboratory fires in eight days this fall, culminating in a blaze on the night of October 7 that destroyed the university’s Innovation Directorate building and prompted a formal criminal inquiry by the Federal Police. UFPE’s rector, Alfredo Gomes, told TV Globo the damage includes roughly R$100 million in equipment losses and the destruction of about two decades of accumulated research and biological samples.
Sequence of fires and immediate response
The first fire occurred on September 30 in a Physics Department laboratory inside a muffle furnace around 1:30 p.m.; on-site extinguishers failed to contain the blaze and two fire trucks from the Corpo de Bombeiros Militar de Pernambuco were dispatched to the CCEN complex in the Várzea neighborhood. Lieutenant Aldo, who led the second unit on scene, said, “We brought more equipment to support.” Vanessa Silva, UFPE’s maintenance director, reported damage to water piping and an electrical shutdown across the block but said the flames had reached only one laboratory; a technical review was scheduled the following morning.
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The second fire broke out on the night of October 4 inside the Cytogenetics and Plant Evolution Laboratory at UFPE’s Center of Biosciences. That incident produced no injuries; university and campus officials did not announce a cause.
October 7 blaze at the Innovation Directorate and the Federal Police inquiry
The most destructive fire struck the former Diretoria de Inovação e Empreendedorismo (DINE) building — part of UFPE’s Innovation Campus on the Cidade Universitária grounds — on the night of October 7. Five fire trucks were mobilized and firefighters battled the blaze through the night; Major Melquezedek Calado of the fire department said the flames consumed the building’s entire upper floor and one lower-level room. Crews preserved some ground-floor laboratories and prevented spread to adjacent structures; the fire was fully extinguished at about 5 a.m. on October 8.
The DINE building housed laboratories in pharmaceuticals, genetics and informatics, including the Núcleo de Pesquisa em Inovação Terapêutica. Rector Alfredo Gomes estimated losses of about R$100 million in equipment — scientific freezers, computing infrastructure and laboratory instruments — and said roughly one hundred active research lines and biological sample collections built over twenty years were destroyed. Research affected included projects on cancer, obesity, Covid-19, ADHD and autism across undergraduate, master’s, doctoral and postdoctoral levels. Gomes told TV Globo, “It is an irreparable loss for the Federal University of Pernambuco and for the research developed there by master’s students, doctoral students, those in scientific initiation, and our faculty.”
The Federal Police announced it had opened a formal criminal inquiry into the October 7 fire and sent a forensic team to the DINE site; the agency said it is coordinating with the rector’s office and the fire department. UFPE separately said it had reached out to the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation seeking emergency assistance. The university stated academic activities proceeded as scheduled on October 8 while damage assessment and research recovery efforts were coordinated with federal authorities.
Political and funding context
The three fires occurred during a politically charged period: the first on September 30 was four days before Brazil’s first-round vote on October 4, the second coincided with election night, and the third came three days after the first round amid pro‑Lula demonstrations on the UFPE campus. At least one news outlet reported that alleged prior threats concerning the DINE building had circulated before the October 7 fire; the Federal Police inquiry will examine those reports.
UFPE and regional university leaders had publicly clashed with the federal government earlier in the year over budget cuts. Rector Gomes and other Northeast university rectors signed a joint statement in January 2026 repudiating a near‑R$500 million reduction in higher-education funding and warning that a R$14 million hit to UFPE would compromise operations. The report covering the fires noted that the 2026 federal university budget, in real terms, represents about 53% of 2014 spending levels and that maintenance and infrastructure needs were constrained by strikes and funding shortfalls earlier in the year; faculty and staff strikes affected at least 50 federal universities in April, the account said.
Official reactions and next steps
Pernambuco Governor Raquel Lyra expressed solidarity with the UFPE community and pledged state support for the Federal Police investigation. Education Minister Leonardo Barchini wrote on X that the ministry received the news “with sadness” and confirmed there were no injuries. UFPE has said it will continue damage assessments and coordinate recovery of research materials with federal authorities.
The Federal Police investigation will seek to determine whether the three fires share a cause, whether any were deliberately set, and what structural conditions allowed the rapid spread of damage. Forensic work at the DINE site is expected to take days, and a full accounting of lost samples, data, dissertations and proprietary compounds could take considerably longer. Authorities have not yet established a cause for the October 7 fire.
