An enormous 2-alarm fire broke out Saturday evening at a building on the USF St. Petersburg campus, coughing up a plume of smoke that stretched for miles over the Tampa Bay area.
Fire officials did not say which building was on fire, but an alert sent to students and staff said it was the Marine Sciences building.
The Pinellas 911 active calls site showed more than 50 apparatus had been summoned to the scene, a substantial call out.
A news release from St. Pete Fire Rescue issued at 6:30 p.m. says units were on the scene of “an active two-alarm structure fire at a commercial building on the USF St. Petersburg campus.”
Frank Biafora stood in Poynter Park and watched the smoke billowing from across the water.
Biafora is the Interim Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at USF St. Petersburg. He learned about the fire after the university sent out an emergency text message and made his way downtown.
“We have faculty members who have research labs there. This looks like total devastation,” Biafora said. “We’ve all been checking in on each other.”
He said there was an electrical storm that came through in the lead up and speculated that could have been the cause, but he’s waiting to hear more.
“I’m watching the toxic fumes and the direction of them,” he said. “We are actually quite lucky that the wind is taking this to the east of us because we have residence halls and a whole lot of students on this campus,” Biafora said, pointing to buildings within eyeshot. “If it was coming west, it could be really dangerous right now.”
Fire Rescue’s news release said the fire remains an “active incident” and “additional details are limited.”
The cause is under investigation.
This is a breaking news story that will be updated as more information becomes available.