Investigators with the state police and Sault Michigan fire department were at the scene of a fire at Lake Superior State University's Center for Applied Sciences and Engineering, examining the extent of damage to the building and looking for a potential cause.
The fire started around 230 p.m. Wednesday.
Chief Ed Miller said that there are several robotic machines that were either damaged or destroyed by the fire itself.
However, the extent of damage from the fire's thick, toxic, greasy soot is unknown at this time. Miller said there is smoke damage throughout much of the building with the heaviest in the robotics and engineering labs.
"There are four machines that will need to be replaced but there is a lot of heat and soot damage to other equipment that we just don't know how they will function and what kind of repairs that will be needed," Miller said. "In the robotics lab, there are a lot of expensive pieces of equipment."
While the exact cost of the lost equipment is unknown, Miller says it's more than just that.
"It is going to be a significant loss to the university, both from the student aspect, the learning aspect as well as the equipment aspect," continued Miller.
Then there are the other parts of the building that will have to be examined for how much damage was done.
"The soot and the smoke were not like what you see in a normal fire. It has components of the materials that were burning. The plastics. The heavy metals from the (lithium) batteries. It's really greasy and it sticks. It is very hard to clean. We have a lot of exposure through the building and the labs. It's going to take a while to get it all cleaned and see what damage has been done," added Miller.
The power was cut to the building during the fire. That meant any fire suppression or alert system was not available if the fire somehow rekindled last night.
That's where the LSSU Fire Services students step in.
"Lake State has a great criminal justice and fire/EMS program and part of that is they have a First Response Team with their students. Last night, they monitored the building by walking through it every hour and reporting it to LSSU Public Safety. There are a lot of batteries and equipment in that room, we wanted to make sure it was monitored throughout the night to make sure nothing else happened," Miller continued.
While the official cause will be determined once the investigation is complete, Miller said they do have video evidence from the building security cameras on where the fire started.