A small fire in the roofing of Maury Hall caused students and faculty to evacuate the building yesterday afternoon.
The fire began shortly before 1:12 p.m., when firefighters and police were called to the scene.
No one was injured in the fire said David Hartman, Charlottesville Fire Department battalion chief.
The fire began when workers from a company that contracts with the University used an electric gun to remove old paint from the facing of Maury Hall's roof. The heat from the electric gun lit cotton on fire that was in the edges of wooden panels behind the paint.
"That kind of fire can be very dangerous because they have very little visibility," said Director of Facilities Operations Chris Willis.
Police, facilities management employees and Charlottesville Fire Department workers surrounded Maury Hall soon after the fire begun while students and faculty evacuated the building.
"There was an orderly evacuation," said Joel Swanson, associate professor of Naval Science, who was working in the building at the time of the fire.
Firefighters quickly extinguished the fire, which took place in the roof of the Commandant's Office, a room on the southeast side of Maury Hall.
Two fire trucks parked on McCormick Road, while other police and fire department vehicles parked outside Minor Hall and in the Cabell Hall parking lot. One fire truck pumped water to the scene from a fire hydrant in the Cabell Hall parking lot.
Once the fire was extinguished, firefighters and facilities management officials cut holes in the exterior of Maury Hall and the roof of the Commandant's Office. The holes were a precautionary measure to make sure there were no other hotspots in the building, Willis said.
The firefighters and police had left the scene by 3 p.m., but facilities management workers stayed at Maury Hall through the early evening, monitoring the situation. Students and faculty were allowed back in the building around 3 p.m.
The Commandant's Office remained closed yesterday but should reopen today, Willis said.
The cost of the damage from the fire is unclear, though the main damage is from the holes the firefighters cut in the building to check for smoldering areas within the roof of the building.
"There is going to be hardly any permanent damage," Hartman said.
The Commandant's Office will require "minor repairs to reinstall the ceiling," University Fire Marshall Tim Ritchey said.
However, repairs to the building's facade could be costly because of the age and design of the building, Willis said.
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