Credit: Dave Decker / Creative Loafing Tampa Bay

It’s been two days since emergency responders were dispatched to put out a two-alarm fire at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg on Saturday, May 2. And according to both fire rescue and university officials, the building is likely unsalvageable.

St. Petersburg Fire Department officials told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that approximately 69 units and 200 firefighters arrived at the scene, which residents suspect was caused by a lightning strike during an intense storm in the area that evening. The cause remains under investigation by the State Fire Marshal’s Office.

Authorities confirmed no one was in the building when the fire erupted, and no injuries were reported. No animals from the lab were injured either.

In an update on Sunday, May 3, USF President Moez Limayem told the school community that no hazardous materials were released and there’s no threat to public safety, though the area around the building should be avoided.

The building’s roof and interior suffered extensive damage—and Limayem’s message said that initial reports suggest the building is likely a “total loss.”

Witnesses Diane and Marshall Craig were among many who spotted massive smoke plumes from their 21st-floor apartment that faces the university.

Diane told CL she saw intense lightning earlier at around 4:30 p.m. while she and Craig headed home on the Howard Frankland Bridge, and she wondered if it may have started the fire.

Marshall said it was fortunate that the wind blew the smoke away from other buildings on campus.

“That was very important,” Marshall told CL. “The wind came at an angle—like the Southwest running toward the Northeast—and that took the wind and the fire and the smoke all out toward Tampa Bay, which really, I think, probably saved a good deal of the rest of the Marine Science Center.”

The MSL building is one of the oldest in USF St. Petersburg’s history since it first served as a dormitory and training station for the U.S. Merchant Marines in the 1940s.

State legislators, for the last few years, have tried to secure funding for USF’s proposed environmental and oceanographic research facility, which would also include repairs to the MSL building. According to the St. Pete Catalyst, Gov. Ron DeSantis approved $24.3 million for the facility in his 2023 budget, just a year after he vetoed $75 million for it.

More than eight decades later, it’s been a core facility for research with its environmental chemistry lab and packed equipment inventory. For years, it has stored and protected research—including globally-collected samples—for students, faculty and partners on the state and local level.

Tom Frazer, dean of the Marine College of Science, told WUSF that the oceanographic research program, which often used the lab as a resource for its insights on subjects like harmful algae blooms, was internationally renowned.

With the lab’s history and importance in mind, the building’s total destruction would be “unfortunate,” Limayem’s said in his update, adding that recovery teams will collect and assess research material to determine whether samples are salvageable.

The fire occurred a day after the USF community mourned the loss of murdered graduate students Nahida Bristy and Zamil Limon in a vigil at USF Tampa.

“The last few weeks have tested our resilience, but our USF community is strong, we protect one another, and we will get through this together,” Limayem’s message read.