Fire prompts last-minute relocation of classes for thousands of University of Alberta students

Thousands of students at the University of Alberta will have their classes relocated this term due a fire that forced the closure of the school's Humanities Centre.

Officials said they expected to be able to reopen the building in time for the start of the winter semester, which starts Monday, after an overheated transformer sparked a small fire on Dec. 18.

However, a report received Jan 2. showed smoke contamination still poses a health and safety risk and the building on the main campus will remain closed for cleanup.

In the interim, most of the 237 English, film and other humanities classes are being relocated to the north campus until April.

"I think we're in really good shape," said James Allen, U of A associate vice-president of asset management and operations.

"There's been a lot of work behind the scenes in a short period of time. So, it's all hands on deck to make sure that we're minimizing any impacts to our community, particularly our students."

Noone was injured in the fire.

Allen said the transformer was installed when the building was constructed in 1972. While the electrical system is older, he said life cycle is just one indicator of whether something is operational, functional or safe.

"There is a robust preventive maintenance program, and there's nothing about this incident that leads us or the investigators to deduce that this was a result of a lack of maintenance," Allen said.

Since the fire, staff have not been able to access the building's 200 offices and workspaces.

"We're all waiting to see if we can go in and get out books and other materials and take a look at the considerable smoke damage," said Julie Rak, interim chair of English and film studies.

Rak said classrooms are required where students can view films together and professors can work with students on their writing, while professors need offices where they can meet with students.

Julie Rak is concerned about possible damage to building's sound and film archives. (Travis McEwan/CBC)

She's also concerned about possible damage to artifacts, a film archive that dates back to the 1920s, and an extensive audio collection and the effect the closure will have on projects that need to access the archives and collections.

"There's a large project that has been started that is classifying and remastering the recordings of every writer who has ever visited the University of Alberta and given a reading," Rak said.

Allen said he is not aware of any damage to artifacts, collections or archives.

In April 2022, the university revealed that it was considering leasing or demolishing the building but Allen said Thursday its future hasn't been decided..

"The current plan is to continue our assessment about what needs to be done to bring it back into operations," Allen said.

"There is nothing cemented around removing the Humanities Centre from our inventory. The one thing that I will say with certainty is we're always looking at our entire building inventory, to make sure that the buildings that we have are safe or operational and they're functional and they can actually support teaching and research."