St. Croix residents can be sure the recent fire at the V.I. Housing Authority’s Estate Bethlehem office will not affect anyone’s position on the public housing waiting list, VIHA Executive Director Robert Graham said Monday.

St. Croix Fire Services was alerted to the fire at 5:05 a.m. Thursday, and Graham says the fire was mostly contained to one large room, but it did heavy damage there.

“The room was hot enough to melt some of the glass in the cubicles and damage computers,” he said.

The fire also destroyed several filing cabinets holding public housing applications.

Graham said the applications would need to be replaced, but that doing so would not affect the waiting list.

“We have an electronic backup for the waitlist,” he said. “We maintain a snapshot of the waitlist every month, so we can always recreate, month to month, where someone’s position was.”

Deputy Fire Chief Corey Kent said a ruling had not yet been made on whether or not the fire was arson, but he confirmed that investigators found a broken lock on one the building’s back doors and the spout of a gas can at the scene.

He could not speculate on when a ruling would be made.

Graham said that this week his staff was focusing on conducting an inventory and damage assessment to present to their insurance company. He did not know how soon repairs to the building could be made.

In the meantime, VIHA’s leasing division and the housing choice voucher program (formerly Section 8) have been relocated to the management office in the Aureo Diaz community, directly across the street from the Estate Bethlehem office. They are still accepting new applications.

Graham said he had no idea why someone would want to burn their files, but his office would work to minimize the effect of the loss on their clients. He said replacement applications would be sent out and people could either return them to the office in person or mail them back in.

Appointments will be made in cases where copies of supporting documentation will need to be resubmitted.

“We’re going to make sure [our clients] are not inconvenienced too much,” Graham said.