Most recent fires not called arson

Five fires in half a month might make some Pitt students believe an arsonist is on a fire… Five fires in half a month might make some Pitt students believe an arsonist is on a fire binge. But to Pitt Police Chief Tim Delaney, it probably just indicates a lot of carelessness.

“I do not think there is a single firebug running around, and neither does the Pittsburgh Fire Department arson squad,” Delaney said, explaining that the squad had ruled only one of the five fires to be arson.

The most recent of the fires, which displaced three floors of Lothrop Hall early Saturday morning, seems to have been caused by a cigarette left on or near a lounge couch, Delaney said.

At 3:21 a.m. Saturday, Pitt police received a report of a couch on fire in the fourth floor lounge of Lothrop, a co-ed residence hall that houses both first-year students and upperclassmen. By the time a Pitt police officer arrived at 3:27, the sprinklers appeared to have put out the fire. The city fire department arrived soon after.

Only the fire department can give permission to turn off sprinklers activated by fire, Delaney said, so the area around the lounge suffered significantly more water damage than smoke or fire damage. Although the smoke from the couch seemed to remain contained in the lobby area and did not appear to affect students, water affected nine rooms on the fourth floor and a room and a suite on the third floor, Delaney said.

Lothrop Hall contains mostly single-occupancy rooms, but there are also some double- and quadruple-occupancy rooms, according to Pitt’s Web site.

At least two of the other fires this month — one in a women’s restroom in Crawford Hall Feb. 2 and the other in a men’s restroom in David Lawrence Hall Feb. 10 — seem to have been caused by cigarettes and not arson, according to Delaney. The city fire department arson squad investigated and issued judgments about all of them.

The one fire suspected of being arson occurred outside Bouquet Gardens Feb. 6, at almost the same moment the Philadelphia Eagles lost the Super Bowl, according to Delaney. Although the chief said he did not want to blame any Eagles fans, he attributed the fire to “somebody getting upset.”

Despite the apparent lack of malicious intent in most of the cases, Delaney said police are nevertheless investigating carefully.

“We’re going to try to see if we have a common denominator,” Delaney said, explaining that police were interviewing all the residents near the Lothrop fire and that they would compare the guest list for Lothrop at the time of the fire to a list of those with reason to be in David Lawrence or Crawford halls when the fires occurred.

“It’s just old-fashioned leg work — detective work,” Delaney said.

To strengthen the involvement of campus police in fire investigations, Pitt police recently sent an investigator to arson school.

“Prior to this, we would just stand there and simply nod our heads,” Delaney said, describing how Pitt police would work with the city’s arson squad. Now that a Pitt police officer is trained, Delaney explained, the officer can accompany and work with city arson investigators responding to fires. The officer can also work alone, he added.

“Fire is very dangerous. The University systems are excellent,” Delaney said, noting that Lothrop’s sprinkler system made quick work of the flames.

Students living on the third, fourth and fifth floors of Lothrop were moved to nearby Victoria Hall until the cleaning staff could take care of the floors, according to Delaney, who did not know how long those students had to stay off their floors.

Whether the fires were caused intentionally or by accident, Delaney welcomes tips regarding any of the recent fires.

“We need some eyes and ears. People have to see something,” he said.