DePauw Public Safety and the Greencastle Fire Department are investigating a fire that damaged the men's restroom in the Center for Contemporary Media on Sunday morning.
Mike Johnson of the Greencastle Fire Department and DePauw's Doug Cox, director of public safety, responded to the fire alarm, which sounded at 1:58 a.m.
"When I opened the [restroom] door, the smoke just rolled out," Johnson said. "The actual flamage wasn't that bad, but the smoke was really heavy and it just took a couple of squirts from the fire extinguisher to put out the fire."
Johnson said, however, that the fire could have quickly spread to other parts of the CCM, had the lavatory door been open. A charred sink, cracked mirror, melted soap dispenser, and soot-filled walls are among the damages.
Johnson said a match was found in the sink. Pieces of last Saturday's edition of The DePauw were also found.
The newspapers were likely used to fuel the fire, which started in the right sink and spread across the counter, Johnson said.
Cox said police conducted a burn test and determined that no catalyst was used to fuel the fire. "The melting of the countertop is what created most of the damage," he said. "We're looking at the card access system, security cameras and finger prints [to ascertain who might have started the fire]."
But so far the police have no leads.
Johnson said that he was surprised to find the water faucet running when firefighters arrived.
"When I got there, the water was coming out of the door," Johnson said. However, this does not necessarily mean that the perpetrators left the water running on the fire.
"It's possible that the fire caused parts of the faucet to melt and that caused the water to come out of the sink," said Ed Lattanzio of Servicemaster, the industrial cleaning company.
Lattanzio cleaned the site Monday afternoon and said that he estimated damages to be up to $15,000.
He said the sinks, countertop and mirror needed to be replaced. Both the men and women's restrooms also need to be cleaned due to smoke damage.
Cox and Johnson estimated the fire probably burned for about five or 10 minutes before being extinguished. Officials spent about two hours clearing the smoke from the building.
"Whatever that [sink] countertop was made out of, it certainly produced a lot of smoke," Johnson said.