(This story was updated Aug. 3 at 8:50 p.m.)
[B]URLINGTON – Firefighters responded to a large fire at the University of Vermont’s historic Torrey Hall shortly after 8 a.m. Thursday, according to Burlington Fire Chief Steven Locke.
No one has been reported injured or missing.
By 2:45 p.m. officials said the fire was extinguished and Colchester Avenue had reopened to traffic after being closed for much of the day.
Several fire departments from the area responded to assist Burlington’s firefighters. Locke said firefighters were challenged to get water into hard-to-reach spaces on the top floor.
“We’re pretty confident the fire was started by workers soldering copper,” Locke said.
Historic preservation renovations had been underway on the building.
Colchester Ave. is closed. Crews still working. Please avoid the area. #BTV pic.twitter.com/azR9y9HdAU
— Burlington Fire Dept (@Btvfire) August 3, 2017
The blaze was originally a three-alarm fire, and was later upgraded to four alarms at around 9:30 a.m. Fire alarm levels are a designation of the number of units that respond to a call. A second alarm fire dispatches all Burlington firefighters, and additional alarms bring in aid from around the county, Locke said.
The building houses two classrooms. No classes were being held in the building over the summer, said UVM spokesman Jeff Wakefield in a statement.
Torrey Hall, which was built in 1863, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building is home to the university’s botany department and holds the Pringle Herbarium, a collection of more than 300,000 plants and insects, according to the UVM website.
The building also houses the Zadock Thompson Zoological Collection on the second floor.
The university said later Thursday that David Barrington, director of the herbarium, had determined the existing herbarium collection was largely intact, based on a preliminary examination of the interior of Torrey Hall. There was some damage to materials that had not yet been processed, the college said.
The Zadock Thompson animal collections did not appear to be damaged, the school added.
Surrounding buildings that were evacuated have been reoccupied. The college said plans are being made for relocating the collections from Torrey Hall and to begin the building restoration process.
UVM employees, students, construction workers and passersby stopped to watch Thursday morning as flames burned the top floor and roof of the structure. Significant amounts of smoke blew off the building as the flames died down and the structure began to smolder. Firefighters used ladders to climb onto the roof and inside the top floor after the flames subsided.
Fragments of shingles that had blown off the charred roof were scattered along Colchester Avenue.
Cameron Youngblood, a UVM junior, said he received an email from the school Thurdsay morning warning students about the fire. He was watching the fire from the roof behind the police caution tape on the edge of the scene.
“It’s a really cool looking building, and it has a lot of history,” Youngblood said. “It’s kind of awful that there’s been a fire, and people can’t enjoy it. Hopefully they can salvage it.”
Correction: In an earlier version of this story Fire Chief Steven Locke’s name was misspelled.
