The fire happened in the base’s building 18, described by Wright-Patterson as a “large complex bordered by 5th, 6th and C streets ... part of the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory campus.”
Building 18 is part of the Power Plant Laboratory Complex at the northeast corner of C & Fifth streets on the base. According to the Library of Congress, buildings 18 and 18G were built as some of the earliest Wright Field structures, used for engine research.
The base reported no injuries in its account of the fire.
According to the base, the fire was confined to a space that had been undergoing construction demolition.
“They were removing test equipment that had been in that building, that had been used for previous research efforts and upgrading the facility,” Olivia Beal, AFRL Aerospace Systems Directorate Integration and Operations Division chief, said in a statement from the base. “So, the critical research items, and everything like that, had already been removed from the room, and the last little bit was some construction demo.”
The base said the fire had initially been declared out after four hours of work, but an airman with the 88th Security Forces Squadron discovered smoke while on patrol the next morning, early on July 19.
Credit: 88th Air Base Wing
Credit: 88th Air Base Wing
“We thought we had the fire out,” Jeffrey Kitzmiller, 788th Civil Engineer Fire Department chief, said in the base statement. “Given the situation with the heavy timber sandwiched between metal, the fire was not out.”
Part of the challenge in responding to the fire was the site featured walls the base said consisted of 4X6 timbers between cement blocks and half-inch thick steel plates.
“The damage has really been limited, in the sense of, we’re still going to finish the demolition,” Beal said. “Some of the stuff that we’ve pulled out that caught fire was stuff we were going to pull out anyway—old 1940s beams and things like that.”
The fire was discovered after the contractors had gone home for the day on July 18, the base said. The base did not identify the contractor working on the site.
This newspaper asked representatives of AFRL and the 88th Air Base Wing for an interview about the fire. A spokesman for AFRL provided a statement from Beal saying: “The renovation work in this lab space is continuing after the fire and we don’t anticipate any negative mission impact.”
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