WCSU official: Dorm hall fire may have been caused by battery

DANBURY — Though the exact cause remains unknown, the Friday night fire on Western Connecticut State University's westside campus is believed to have been accidental.

“We're speculating that a lithium-ion battery was dropped down the trash chute and something caused it to heat up and spontaneously combust,” the university's chief facilities officer, Luigi Marcone, said Monday.

Although it's just a hypothesis at this point “simply because there was no evidence of combustible liquids or anything like that,” Marcone said it's not uncommon for people to throw away items containing lithium-ion batteries, which can cause fire if they get overheated.

Danbury firefighters responded to an alarm activation at the university's Centennial Hall residence building around 10:10 p.m. Friday and found a working fire inside a trash compactor.

“Our automatic fire alarm system activated pretty quickly,” Marcone said, noting that the building was occupied but “almost empty” at the time.

With the spring semester wrapping up, he said there were only about 25 students inside the residence hall.

The fire in the trash chute caused smoke to fill the building's fourth floor cockloft, according to Danbury fire officials, who said additional crews were called to the scene and the fire was extinguished with no injuries reported.

“Within a couple hours, the building was reoccupied and everything cleared without significant damage,” Marcone said.

The only thing damaged, he said, was the trash compactor itself.

“There was no damage to the building and no sprinkler activation. We're fortunate to have had good infrastructure,” Marcone said.

Centennial Hall, the newest of the university's residence halls, was built in 2004, according to the campus website.

While it's possible the fire started from a lithiumion battery, Danbury Deputy Fire Marshal Paul Rozzi said he can't say for sure.

“I don't really know because of the fact that it was contained within the dumpster and the material in the area of origin had been disturbed during the extinguishing process,” he said.

Rozzi said he conducted a limited investigation after being called to the scene by the incident commander Friday night.

“It's not technically our jurisdiction because it's state property,” he said, “but I did meet with a couple representatives from the university and took observations at the scene.”

It's unclear whether or not the state fire marshal's office was requested to investigate the Friday night blaze.

Marcone said Tuesday that the state fire marshal's office was notified of the fire, but “to the best of our knowledge, they have not investigated.”