By Terence Hunt
The Associated Press
 AP Photo/Gerald Herbert Fire trucks line up during the fire, Wednesday. |
WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney’s suite of offices, known for its historical furnishings and ornate decorations, was damaged by smoke and water from fire hoses used to knock down a fire inside a room used for official ceremonies.
Officials said they were worried about water damage to the floor, made of mahogany, white maple and cherry and considered to be very delicate, as firefighters faced the billowing smoke Wednesday in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building beside the White House.
The adjacent office of the vice president’s political director, Amy Whitelaw, was heavily damaged by fire, said Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride.
The vice president was not in the building at the time; he was in the West Wing of the White House with President George W. Bush.
More than 1,000 people who work in the building were evacuated as the second through the fifth floor of the building filled with smoke. The fire broke out on the second floor shortly after office hours began Wednesday, and it was under control within a half-hour, District of Columbia fire department spokesman Alan Etter said.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said the blaze appeared to have started in an electrical closet or a telephone bank.
The building was reopened Wednesday afternoon, and Cheney walked through to inspect the damage. The set of offices contains the vice president’s ceremonial office, used for meetings and press interviews, and the offices of his staff. His primary office is across West Executive Avenue in the West Wing.
Earlier, Bush and Cheney appeared on West Executive Avenue, between the White House and the damaged building, to thank the firefighters. A fire tanker nearby still had its ladder extended to a window on the blackened second floor.
The Washington firefighters poured water on the blaze, broke windows and moved furniture onto a balcony.
No serious injuries were reported, Etter said. A U.S. Marine stationed at the building smashed a fifth-floor window to escape from the smoke and had to be rescued from the ledge, he said. The man suffered a minor cut to his hand.
The extent of water, fire and smoke damage was unclear.
Investigators were working to determine the cause of the blaze, Etter said.
Since 1960, Cheney’s office has been occupied by all but one vice president from Lyndon B. Johnson, President John F. Kennedy’s vice president, who succeeded the assassinated president. The exception was Hubert Humphrey, Johnson’s vice president, who used a room on the floor below. Since its restoration in the 1980s, it has been considered a “ceremonial” office.
It contains a desk first used by Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 and later by Presidents William H. Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower. The inside of the top drawer has been signed by the various users since the 1940s.
The Executive Office Building, a commanding structure with a granite, slate and cast iron exterior at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 17th Street, houses the Office of Management and Budget and staff of the National Security Council and other agencies. After 17 years’ construction, it was completed in 1888.