Fire At Practice Facility Near Texas Tech Football Stadium
Follow CBSDFW.COM: Facebook | Twitter
LUBBOCK (CBSDFW.COM) - Texas Tech's campus sports performance center caught fire Wednesday.
The fire was reported on the north part of the Texas Tech campus near Jones AT&T Stadium around 5:30 p.m. according to CBS affiliate KLBK-TV.
Heavy smoke was visible and could be seen from miles away.
Robert Giovannetti of Texas Tech Athletics told KLBK there was a small fire on top of the roof of the sports performance center on the Texas Tech campus.
The fire is contained and there were no reports of injuries.
Michael Molina, Vice Chancellor Facilities Planning and Construction for the TTU System, told KLBK, university workers were welding on the top roof and a small piece of hot metal went down to the lower roof where new roofing materials were being added.
The lower roof then ignited rubber roofing material, which caused the black smoke, Molina said.
Molina explained that two crew members dedicated to "fire watch" were not able to get to the fire before it was smoldering and then into a flame.
Molina said, "Right now we're actually assessing the damage as we speak. Obviously the roofing material is damaged but it was never laid down and actually installed. So there's zero loss time that. We're going to have to check the steel deck just to make sure that everything is okay there. We'll know that by noon tomorrow (Thursday), 5:00 p.m. tomorrow worst case."
Molina went on to say, "Fortunately all protocol was followed to a "T." All of our safety precautions were accurate, nothing egregious or done inappropriately. The wind caught a piece of slag and fell 50 or 60 feet below that. The two fire spotters saw it and just before they could get there the smolder turned into a flame thus the smoke."