A fire in the biomass heating system at National Life led to the evacuation of around 1,000 people Thursday afternoon.
No one was injured in the conflagration, said National Life’s director of corporate communications, Ross Sneyd.
“We did have a fire in our boiler room,” Sneyd said. “It was contained to the biomass unit we have.”
That boiler room is found in the southern of two large office buildings on the campus, known informally as ‘the main building,’ and the evacuation was limited to that structure, he said.
The building to the north, called the Dean C. Davis building, where state workers are located, was neither affected by the fire nor evacuated.
National Life employees evacuated the building at 3:15 p.m., Sneyd said. The office closed for the day at 4:20 p.m., after fire officials allowed workers back into the building to gather their belongings for the night. Firefighters left the area at around 5:00 p.m., he said.
Business operations were largely unaffected, Sneyd said, because company officials shifted the work to the company’s Texas office.
The main building contains an oil-fired boiler separate from the biomass one, and because that unit still works the Montpelier National Life office will be open on Friday as usual, Sneyd said.
It’s unclear why the fire started, and an investigation is underway, Sneyd said.
State officials say the event didn’t impede their work.
Louis Porter, commissioner of the Fish and Wildlife Department, said he heard about the fire when a friend sent him a text message.
“I’m standing in my office… so If there was a fire, it was either very small or in another part of the building,” Porter said he told his friend.
Montpelier fire officials were unavailable for comment.
