A large fire broke out Monday night at the Raleigh Convention Center in downtown. Smoke was visible for miles as the two-alarm fire burned on the roof of the 500,000-square-foot building in the 500 block of S. Salisbury Street. The call came in just before 9:30 p.m., a City of Raleigh spokesperson said. About 50 firefighters responded.
“I see smoke engulfing like the entire building, like coming from the top of it,” said one man who was riding a scooter when he saw the blaze. “They had about two of those cranes up there; they were trying to spray out some sort of fire.” The fire has been put out, City of Raleigh spokesperson Julia Milstead said. There was no interior damage noted, though white smoke still rose from the roof past 11 p.m.
“It was limited to the roof,” Milstead added. The cause of the fire was not immediately known. Preliminary information suggests that it appeared to be a “natural gas incident” connected to the HVAC system. The gas was eventually shut off. Milstead said there was a mechanical platform on the roof, and fire investigators were focusing on that area to pinpoint the cause of the fire.
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