BLAIR HALL UPDATE
May-27-2004
On Wednesday, April 28, 2004, Blair Hall (an academic building located southeast of Old Main on EIU's campus) suffered extensive damage as the result of a mid-afternoon fire. The building was safely evacuated and no injuries were reported.
EIU'S BLAIR HALL FIRE CLASSIFIED AN ACCIDENT BY STATE FIRE MARSHAL
The April 28 fire which destroyed much of Eastern Illinois University 's Blair Hall has been classified as an accident.
According to fire investigators, the source of the ignition appears to have been in the interstitial space (or inner wall pocket) below the building's southeast dormer window frame. It is believed the interstice could have contained materials easily combustible (such as the nest of a bird or a mouse) and totally unseen by anyone working on the structure.
Earlier in the day, university employees had been using an electric heat gun to soften and help remove paint from around an exterior window frame during restoration work. (The device releases hot air, much like a hair dryer. It does not release open flames.)
It is believed that the wall cavity and any combustible material within that cavity were either directly or indirectly (via copper flashing located behind the wooden trim) exposed to the heat from the paint restoration operation. Direct exposure could have been possible had any of the frame-to-structure caulking been dislodged or missing along the lower exterior window frame.
It is believed that a natural draft, traveling from outside toward the inside, carried the smoke, unseen, upward through the wall cavity and into the unoccupied attic space above the dormer. In this scenario, the fire would have developed very slowly and, as such, could easily have gone unnoticed until visible smoke and flame began to show at the roof, officials said.
According to Jeff Cooley, Eastern's vice president for business affairs, the procedure being used to remove paint from around Blair Hall's window frames is a familiar operation to Eastern employees. The same paint-softening procedure was used elsewhere on campus in 2003 to renovate windows in another of the university's oldest (and historic) buildings - Pemberton Hall. Renovation of approximately two-thirds of Blair Hall's windows had been completed in the weeks preceding the fire.
According to Cooley, workers involved in the paint removal process on April 28 had turned the heat gun off by 2:40 p.m. , thus allowing for the "fire watch" period mandated any time an employee does "hot work" (i.e., welding, burning of any kind) on campus. Workers did not observe any sign of smoke or a fire before they left the site at approximately 3 p.m.
The first sign of smoke and flames on the exterior of the building was spotted by passers-by shortly thereafter, and the Charleston Fire Department received notification of the fire at 3:14 p.m. Winds blowing in excess of 30 mph the day of the fire fueled the blaze, causing firefighters to remain at the scene until well after midnight . A small crew returned the next morning to put out isolated "hot spots."
Blair Hall - the third oldest building on Eastern's campus - was a three-story, limestone masonry and wood structure. In the end, it was determined that the roof structure and the third floor of Blair Hall were destroyed, and that extensive water damage to the first and second floors will necessitate "gutting" those areas. The building's "shell," or exterior walls, the corridor flooring, the north and south stairwells and the structure's load-bearing walls can be salvaged.
University officials are currently making plans for the building's renovation.
Eastern officials estimate that faculty and staff who were housed in Blair Hall will be able to move back to that facility in late 2005/early 2006. Currently, they have been relocated to temporary office spaces at the following locations:
• Department of Sociology/Anthropology - Clinical Services, first floor
• Graduate School - Clinical Services, second floor
• International Programs - Clinical Services, second floor
• Grants and Research - Clinical Services, second floor
• African-American Studies - Clinical Services, second floor
• University Counsel - Clinical Services, second floor
• Minority Affairs & Gateway Program - Clinical Services, first floor
• School of Continuing Education - Buzzard House
These locations are short-term, and will be affected by the Doudna Fine Arts Center restoration/expansion project. Affected departments plan on being moved again before returning to a renovated Blair Hall. This second move might occur as early as this summer or as late as December 2004.
Telephone numbers and e-mail addresses remain the same.
