Fire won’t slow Campus Addition construction

A smoky fire clouding up the Monroe Park Campus Addition on Tuesday was quickly contained. Sparks from welding on the top floor of the under-construction School of Engineering building lit a stack of roofing insulation on fire.

“It looked impressive,” said Lt. Keith Vida, spokesman for the City of Richmond Department of Fire and Emergency Services. “But it turned out to be a non-event because they were able to contain it.”

After the call came in around 8:45 a.m., fire trucks on Belvidere set up ladders and poured water down into the structure. “Once we were able to get water on it, it went out pretty quick,” he said.

Ed Bennett, executive director of physical plant and deputy for facilities management, said he was glad no one was hurt.

“Any fire is potentially serious. The first thing you worry about is, ‘Is anybody hurt?’ Fortunately nothing happened there,” he said.

The building wasn’t at risk of burning to the ground because of its construction, Vida said.

“People were a bit freaked out because of the Broad Street fire,” he said. “This is a totally different building. It is steel sprayed with fire-protection material. We weren’t worried about it burning the building.”

Bennett said when he was notified of a fire, he knew it had to be roofing insulation because there were few other combustible materials on the 30-percent finished building. The Virginia state fire marshall and city of Richmond officials inspected the construction site Tuesday, he said. The fire caused some traffic delays on the busy north-south thoroughfare which was closed for about an hour.

Bennett said the fire will not delay construction of the structure, which is on track.

“There will be no delay whatsoever to the building. The project is on schedule,” he said.

The morning of March 26, 2004, the under-construction Ramz Hall building at 933 W. Broad St. caught fire, quickly burning to the ground. It charred the upper floor of the School of the Arts Building and homes in the Carver neighborhood, causing the death of a woman whose oxygen supply failed when power went out. A cigarette tossed into an overstuffed trash chute caused that fire. The damage was worsened because the building had a wooden frame, not the steel or concrete frame mandated by the Richmond fire code.