A construction vehicle goes up in flames near a North Campus construction site . The burned vehicle was considered a loss, but no one was injured. Credit: Courtesy of Leonardo Carrizo
A construction vehicle caught on fire at a North Campus construction site Tuesday evening.
No one was hurt, said Lt. Pete Dragonette of University Police, and the only damage was to the construction vehicle itself. The vehicle was near a building under construction, but there was no structural damage to the building, he said.
The construction vehicle, a boom crane, was a “total loss,” Dragonette added.
Dragonette said the police department did not have a cause of the fire yet.
“The construction workers were done for the day, and the vehicle just caught on fire,” Dragonette said.
Students and staff walking by saw columns of smoke and white steam as the fire department put out the fire.
Joachim Bean, a staff employee in the human ecology office, said he knew something was wrong when he saw smoke. He stayed to watch the firemen put out the fire.
“I was just coming from the RPAC and I just wanted to come see what was happening,” Bean said. “I saw white smoke and firefighters putting out the fire with foam.”
Ben Stocker, a second-year in biomechanical engineering, watched the fire from the bus stop outside Koffolt Labs across the street.
“I thought it was interesting,” Stocker said. “You don’t see fires everyday, except for championship wins.”
