{"id":258152,"date":"2026-05-04T19:43:56","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T19:43:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/258152\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T19:43:56","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T19:43:56","slug":"usf-st-pete-fire-likely-caused-by-lightning-strike-meteorologists-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/258152\/","title":{"rendered":"USF St. Pete fire likely caused by lightning strike, meteorologists say"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fire that destroyed the Marine Science Lab<\/a> on the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus was likely caused by a lightning strike during an intense thunderstorm that swept through the area Saturday, meteorologists said.<\/p>\n

Meteorologists at the National Weather Service of Tampa Bay received three emails Saturday night from the Florida State Emergency Operations Center that said the fire was caused by a lightning strike.<\/p>\n

The first email was sent at 6:22 p.m.<\/p>\n

It said that the \u201cSt. Pete Fire Department reports a structure fire involving the science building of USF being on fire due to a lightning strike,\u201d according to Ross Giarratana, a meteorologist for the weather service\u2019s local office.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to say if that was the exact cause with 100% certainty,\u201d Giarratana said. \u201cThe key thing is that the lightning description (in the emails) remained the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

The State Watch Office<\/a> sends out communications to agencies across the state to ensure all parties are aware of ongoing situations, according to its website. The emails include preliminary information provided by the responding agency and are not an official record of what happened.<\/p>\n

Emails from the office also said the fire warranted a Hazmat response because there were chemicals in the building, Giarratana said. It is not yet known which chemicals were present.<\/p>\n

Footage recorded by the Tampa Bay Times Saturday night showed green flames billowing out of the building\u2019s roof. Green flames are typically caused by copper or boric acid,<\/a> indicating the possibility of an electrical fire.<\/p>\n

St. Petersburg Fire District Chief Michael Lewis said Saturday night that more than 60 units with about 200 firefighters were summoned to the scene. No injuries were reported.<\/p>\n

After the fire was put out, Lewis said the building was likely \u201ca total loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fire department could not be reached for additional comment Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fire that destroyed the Marine Science Lab on the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[96022,111916,90029,111915,2072,202,204,203,199,201,200,23789],"class_list":["post-258152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-fire-damage","tag-florida-state-emergency-operations-center","tag-lightning-strike","tag-marine-science-lab","tag-national-weather-service","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-structure-fire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}