Lane Library temporarily closed due to fire

After a small electrical fire on the first floor of Oxford’s Lane Library in the children's department, library officials say it will reopen later this week.

“We are uncertain right now, but we are hopeful that we may be able to get the library open tomorrow,” said Carrie Mancuso, the public relations manager for the Lane Libraries. “We're just kind of getting through the day, and we've got restoration services on site.”

Oxford Fire Chief John Detherage said the fire started on Sept. 22 at 10:38 p.m. due to a light fixture and was put out by 10:45 p.m.

He said the damages include the light fixture, a table damaged by the burned plastic that dropped onto it, a couple of books and the water damage from the hoses, in addition to smoke damage.

“It was just a random thing,” Detherage said. “That building [is] probably getting close to 10 years old, so things that are starting to get a little bit older start to fail as they age.”

In response to that, Mancuso said they don’t know why the light fixture failed or what occurred within it to create the fire.

“We'll be looking at ways to make sure that we prevent anything similar from happening,” she said, “but we have to investigate what exactly happened before we have any idea how we'll move forward with that kind of mitigation.”

According to a post on Facebook by The Lane Libraries, all programming for [Sept. 23] is cancelled.

stumbata@miamioh.edu