Fire damages US vice-president's office
WASHINGTON (AFP) — A fire broke out Wednesday near US Vice President Dick Cheney's ceremonial office, in a building overlooking the White House, causing considerable damage, US officials said.
Authorities ruled out terrorism as a cause for the blaze in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which forced hundreds of US government workers to evacuate but only injured one person, who suffered minor cuts to one hand.
Cheney and US President George W. Bush were across the street in the top-secret Situation Room in the West Wing of the White House, receiving a daily intelligence briefing, when the fire broke out around 9:15 am (1415 GMT), said White House officials.
"The vice president's ceremonial office received smoke and water damage, but there is no fire damage," said the president's spokeswoman Dana Perino, who said that local fire authorities were "working at the direction of the Secret Service to determine the cause" of the blaze.
Perino said the blaze began in an electrical room, or electrical closet, or telephone bank steps from Cheney's ceremonial office, whose "gorgeous wood floor" was now "mostly underwater."
Perino told reporters that the Washington fire department reported receiving a telephone call alerting them to the blaze at 9:15 am.
She said that White House employees who work in the building would be sent home while authorities gauged the extent of the damage to the historic room, which was filled with valuables.
"That room is certainly gorgeous. And it has a lot of historic artifacts in there. And it's got a gorgeous floor, wood floor, that is currently under water," but the full of extent of the damage had not yet been determined, said Perino.
Earlier, reporters in the White House driveway could see thick black smoke billowing into the sky and firefighters piling chairs on the office balcony in an apparent effort to save them.
Roughly an hour after the incident began, Washington Fire Chief Kenneth Crosswhite said emergency workers had the situation "under control" and that "there were no injuries" reported.
"It is still too early (to specify the cause); we've got to investigate," he told AFP. But "there is no terrorist attack."
Crosswhite said the blaze had been confined to Room 274, which Cheney aides confirmed to be the vice president's ceremonial office. But White House officials later said that the fire had struck down the hall.
The building is on the White House grounds, protected by a fence and the US Secret Service in charge of Bush's security, and separated from the mansion by a narrow street where some senior aides park.
The edifice, originally built between 1871 and 1888 to house the US State, War and Navy departments, later became then-president Franklin Delano Roosevelt's War Department during World War II.
The ornate grey building, built in the French Second Empire style, is sometimes derided in Washington as a colossal "wedding cake."
