A small fire broke out late Tuesday night on the third floor of Wilsdorf Hall, which houses the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
A call came into the Charlottesville Fire Department last night at 10:45 from someone who was in the building at the time and pulled the fire alarm, University spokesperson McGregor McCance said.
“The Charlottesville Fire Department responded with four engines and two ladders and the Battalion Chief as well,” McCance said.
Although the fire damage was very limited because of the automatic sprinkler system, the smell of smoke lingered overnight.
“The smell is pretty intense,” said Eric Newsome, Wilsdorf Hall’s webmaster whose office is on the building’s first floor. “It’s not so much the damage from the fire that caused people to not go into their offices as the remaining smell.”
Newsome also said a professional cleaning crew was on site this morning with large fans to ventilate the building and rid it of the smell.
“I could smell it this morning, but I’m quite fine now,” Newsome said. “The biggest inconvenience was water getting files and papers wet.”
There is a significant amount of water damage from the automatic sprinklers that affected offices on the third and fourth floors, McCance said.
Though the smoke and water caused temporary inconveniences this morning, more significant damage was inflicted on research equipment used by graduate students.
“My understanding is that it affected a piece of equipment and that’s going to cause the students who needed that equipment to be delayed in their research,” Newsome said.
McCance said the State Fire Marshal is conducting an ongoing investigation. “We don’t have the preliminary cause of the fire or the [significance of] the damage in Wilsdorf,” McCance said.
There were no injuries and the building was evacuated until it could be fully ventilated.
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