BELCHERTOWN – Firefighters throughout Wednesday battled a fire in a vacant building at the former Belchertown State School.
Police received a report at 6:15 a.m. that smoke was billowing out of a building on Jackson Street off Route 202. The Belchertown Fire Department was dispatched to the building at the former state school, which closed after 70 years in 1992.
The fire was contained, but it is difficult to estimate when it would be fully extinguished, Police Sgt. Kevin Pacunas said.
“It’s in an old brick building with tons of sectioned-off rooms in it,” Pacunas said. “The building is closed off so there’s no air getting in there.”
Because the buildings at the former state school are locked and abandoned, the fire is considered suspicious and is under investigation, Pacunas said.
“It’s a fire inside of a locked building and it didn’t just start on its own,” Pacunas said. “Somebody would have had to break in to start it.”
No people were near the scene and police have no suspects, Pacunas said.
A suspicious fire in November destroyed a two-story house that once was a residential cottage on the property, but investigators could not pinpoint its specific cause or any suspects.
The town has started the process of redeveloping the 846-acre former state school campus, with demolition of several buildings and tunnels beginning in 2015.