Fire at Wayne State Maccabees Building extinguished after massive response

Historic Wayne State Maccabees building catches fire on 11th floor

An electric HVAC system is suspected to have started the fire Wednesday afternoon in Detroit at WSU near Warren and Woodward Avenue. 

DETROIT (FOX 2) - Crews battled a large fire at a historic building on the campus of Wayne State University at Warren and Woodward on Wednesday afternoon.

The backstory:

By 1:30 the fire was confirmed out at the Maccabees building with only smoking hotspots getting sprayed by water. There were no injuries.

Detroit Fire Chief James Harris said the first calls came in at 1:01 p.m. and that the response was under five minutes.

An HVAC electrical issue was the cause, said Chief Anthony Holt, Wayne State police.

"It was an electrical fire, it began on the 11th floor on a platform outside the building there," Holt said. "It looks like an air handling unit caught fire there."

Holt said most of the damage the building withstood was from water.

"The water damage might be contained to the bottom three floors - the 11th, 10th and plus the ninth," Holt said.

Harris said about 60 firefighters were at the scene, and praised the work of all involved.

"We are trained for this, we are built for this," Harris said. "The men and women did an awesome job. Nobody was injured and everyone got out in time."

The blaze was contained to the 11th floor, which houses the Graduate Schools Deans Office and Department of African American Studies.

The nearly 100-year-old 14-story building is located at at 5057 Woodward Avenue.

The building was opened in 1927 and designed by the famous architect Albert Kahn.

The Maccabees Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. 

The building was constructed for the fraternal organization Knights of the Maccabees which later established the Royal Maccabees Insurance Company.