A fire in the UA's Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Building yesterday is being investigated as an arson.

Captain Mike Walls, with the Tucson Fire Department, said the fire was still under investigation and said that it is being treated as an arson.

Walls said further information concerning damages in the building at 1302 E. North Campus Dr. would not be available until today.

An "extra-full" complement of Tucson firefighters responded to alarms around 3:25 p.m., said Keith Richter, battalion chief for Tucson Fire Department.

"Anytime we get a call for a high-rise or building taller than two stories we make the 'extra-full' call," Richter said.

Sgt. Brian A. Seastone of UAPD said TFD had the fire under control in the four-story building less than an hour later.

Four, third-floor faculty offices were damaged before firefighters could bring the fire under control yesterday afternoon.

Seastone said TFD had identified that the fire broke out on the east end of the second floor and had spread through several offices on the third floor. Smoke had filled the entire third floor and could be seen coming out of vents and windows in the rear of the building and from the doorways on its west side.

Sharon Kha, assistant to the university president who was on the scene, said multiple 911 calls had been made and that authorities were still investigating as to how the fire had originally started.

Joseph A.C. Humphrey, head of the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering department, said the offices touched by the fire belonged to several faculty members.

The fire will not affect department business, Humphrey said, but "some faculty members may be inconvenienced."

Important department records located on the opposite end of the building from the fire and classrooms were not damaged, he said.

Raphael T. Hon, Aerospace Engineering graduate student, said he was on the third floor working on a project when he heard the alarm.

He said he didn't see evidence of a fire or smell any smoke or fumes, but evacuated the building.

Hon said he made a 911 call from inside the UA's Student Union around 3:30 to report the fire.

"The only concern that I have is that, if the sprinklers went off, did any of the work get wet?" he said. "There's a lot of expensive computers (in there)."

Mechanical engineering junior Joaquin Majallanez and systems engineering senior Javier Corralles were in the Old Engineering Building, 1127 E. North Campus Dr., when they noticed a strange odor.

"We were talking on the computer and said 'Do you smell something?'," Majallanez said.

Majallanez said he saw no flames but noticed a cracked window on the second floor and that the windows were black, prompting him to believe a fire had started on the second floor.

The UA's Risk Management office will evaluate the damage and hire a salvage company to haul away the debris, said UA safety officer Herbert Wagner Jr.

"We will try to salvage the building and get it reopened as quickly as possible," Wagner said.

Risk Management will determine whether the building can be reoccupied or not, Kha said.

An Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering complex is under construction at the corner of North Mountain Avenue and East Speedway Boulevard. It will hold units housed in buildings throughout the campus, including those occupying the damaged building.

Wildcat reporter Craig Degel contributed to this report.