The Texas State Fire Marshal’s Office has ruled the March 2025 fires and explosions at Texas Tech University — that forced a mass evacuation of campus and lasting power outages — to be an accident.
SFMO investigator Sgt. Kelly Vandygriff points out that this accident “was solely an issue with the underground electrical service,” meaning the entire situation started with the electrical vaults under the campus’ Engineering Key.
It was due to an “electrical line submerged underwater in one of the underground vaults” that sparked the green fires, purple smoke and several explosions on the Texas Tech campus on March 12, 2025 resulted from “failure of the underground wiring and switches between the first event and source at Brandon Station.”
This series of events forced the campus to shut down a few days early for spring break as campus-wide power outages plagued the university for weeks.
Through Vandigraff’s investigation, along with the help from others at SFMO, investigators from the Texas Department of Insurance and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the public is able to see a line of events as to what happened that evening.
Where did the fire, explosions at Texas Tech start?
The story continues after the gallery.
Vandygriff concluded that the electrical utilities in the submerged underground vault serviced by Lubbock Power & Light were what started the chain of events.
“The following reported explosions were result of the arcing of the electrical lines igniting the confined buildup of products of combustion creating a ‘smoke explosion’ until a complete failure of the electrical system caused the electrical flow to cease in the affected lines, conduits, and vaults,” reads Vandygriff’s report.
Two days after the fires and explosions, TID Engineer Eric DeArmitt entered the vault that was identified as starting the chain of events.
DeArmitt reported that upon entering the vault, there were immediate signs “a significant electrical malfunction event” had occurred that caused extensive thermal damage to the vault’s walls, charring and carbonization of conductor insulation material and localized melting of metallic components.
“Substantial transfer of molten copper to the vault walls and ceiling was noted,” DeArmitt wrote. “This molten deposition exhibited characteristic spatter patterns, aligning with arc-driven ejection of liquified material during the fault event.”
However, the exact cause of the “electrical failure is unknown.”
Vandygriff also confirmed in his report that the issue was not related to any leaks of natural gas or any other type of ignitable or explosive gas.
The viral videos backed this up, noting that they “did not display characteristics associated with those types of events” and that Lubbock Fire Rescue’s gas readings were “generic readings and were unable to be associated with specific gas.”
Ultimately, the “incident is classified as accidental” and is closed.
Why did LP&L’s Brandon Station explode at Texas Tech?
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SFMO deputy chief of Inspections, Kelley Stalde, was also asked to help Vandygriff in the investigation focusing on LP&L’s Brandon Station — located just north of the United Supermarkets Arena on campus.
Stalde was requested to focus on a group of six overcurrent protection devices (OCPD) typically used for connection between the utility grid and industrial facilities in a container at Brandon Station. The container also contains monitoring equipment and an across-connection to another group of OCPD adjacent to this one.
Stalde reported seeing significant damage to several OCPD — notably one labeled as “5” which was associated with a 15KV circuit that was observed producing visible flaming and arcing in the Engineering Key. He also noted damage to the OCPD adjacent to it.
“A possible hypothesis is that a bolted fault occurred, most likely in the vault in the Engineering Key identified as 210. This fault likely propagated through heating of the conductors back to the OCPD and the OCPD failed to clear the fault before destruction of the bus bar at the base of the OCPD,” read Stalde’s report.
In his report, Stalde did not have a hypothesis as to what caused the initial failure in the vault.
LP&L responds to the state fire marshal’s report on the Texas Tech fires
In response to a request for comment on SFMO’s findings, LP&L stated that it has received it and is in the process of reviewing its analysis of the event.
“While LP&L disagrees with certain key aspects of their findings, we are in the process of reviewing our findings and practices to better understand the true cause of the event that took place on the Tech campus,” reads the statement.
LP&L also stated that after the fire, it was able to quickly repair and replace damaged equipment and bring all affected areas of campus back online, with the electrical system at Texas Tech safely functioning as intended.
The municipal utility did not respond to the A-J’s request asking whether it knew about the problems the SFMO report highlighted before the incident, or when its analysis would be made available to the public.
Mateo Rosiles is the Government & Public Policy reporter for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Got a news tip for him? Email him: mrosiles@lubbockonline.com.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech March 2025 fires, explosions ruled an accident by Texas State Fire Marshals
Reporting by Mateo Rosiles, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
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