QUINCY — A three-alarm fire, probably sparked by copper thieves using a blowtorch, tore through Quincy’s Old City Hall early Tuesday morning, causing millions of dollars of damage to the historic building, authorities said.
The fire on Hancock Street broke out at about 1 a.m., officials said. No one was injured.
“I got here thinking, ‘Perhaps we’ll lose the entire building,’ which would be a tough thing,” Mayor Thomas Koch of Quincy said during a press conference at the fire scene. “It’s been the seat of government in Quincy since 1844. It’s iconic to the people of Quincy, the face of that building, what it means civically.”
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Deputy Fire Chief Paul Griffith said someone broke into the building over the weekend and stole construction materials including copper; the blaze Tuesday, he said, was apparently started by thieves using a torch.
“Investigators believe that the fire was started by people attempting to remove copper pipes from the historical building and is considered an intentional act,” Jennifer Mieth, spokeswoman for State Fire Marshal Stephen D. Coan, said in a statement.
Inside the building, copper piping sat on the floor beneath a ceiling so charred that pipes and wires were in danger of falling.
Old City Hall is currently undergoing a $9 million restoration project, which Koch said was originally projected to finish in February, but will be delayed by six to eight weeks because of the fire.
Officials said they did not yet know the dollar value of the damage, but Assistant City Solicitor Paul Hines said it would be in the millions. Standing in a soaked, charred doorway just outside the back room where officials believe the fire started, Hines ticked off the ruined parts of the building: much of the completed electrical work and plumbing, the HVAC system, the drywall, and structural wood.
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“Even the fire suppression system, the pipes have bowed from the heat,” said Hines. “It was a very, very hot fire. The exterior of the building heated so badly that when the Fire Department hit it with the hoses, the granite itself shattered.”
Koch said the damaged granite was original, quarried in 1844.
“We can’t replace these granite blocks, I mean, we don’t have any Quincy quarries open anymore,” he said.
Koch said security around the building will be tightened.
At about 7 a.m. Tuesday, police arrested 54-year-old Darwin May for receiving the copper stolen over the weekend, though he is not a suspect in the actual theft or the fire, said Captain John Dougan of the Quincy police.
A witness reported to police seeing people collecting items around Old City Hall and taking them to the area of 185 Burgin Parkway. There, Dougan said, police found a bundle of 5- and 10-foot copper poles, probably everything that had been taken from the construction site over the weekend.
May told police he is homeless and collects cans for money. He said he found the copper bundle outside the building and had never gone inside.
May pleaded not guilty Tuesday in court to charges of receiving stolen property.
In the rear of the building Tuesday, scorch marks could be seen rising up the granite exterior from the first-floor window of the back room where authorities believe the fire started. Griffith said the fire was contained to the first floor.
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The State Fire Marshal’s office asked anyone with information about the fire to call the arson hot line at 800-682-9229. The call is confidential.
The fire is being investigated by the Quincy Fire Department, the Quincy Police Department, and state troopers assigned to the Office of the State Fire Marshal.
Evan Allen can be reached at evan.allen@globe.com. Kiera Blessing can be reached atkiera.blessing@globe.com.