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fire gutted the University of Indonesia'€™s (UI) School of Social and Political Sciences in Depok, West Java, Tuesday, reducing a vast collection of literature and research archives to ashes.

Depok Police chief Sr. Comr. Achmad Kartiko said the fire started at 6:30 a.m. and spread throughout the entire building in less than an hour.

'€œHowever, there were no casualties at the scene,'€ he said.

Achmad said the fire supposedly originated from an air conditioner on the first floor.

'€œAccording to an office boy who witnessed the incident, he heard an explosion from the air conditioner at about 6:30 a.m.,'€ he said.

Achmad said the witness also saw sparks spewing from the machine before he called security guards.

'€œThe security officers tried to extinguish the sparks with a fire extinguisher but the fire had already jumped,'€ he said.

At least five fire trucks from Depok and South Jakarta fire departments arrived at the scene.

According to the police, it took five hours for the firefighters to tame the fire, which by that time had engulfed the whole structure.

The three-story building is home to the school'€™s archives and several research centers, including the Center for Election and Political Party (CEPP) and the school'€™s famous sociology lab.

A group of UI sociology lecturers, including sociology professor Paulus Wirotomo, gathered in front of the ruins in shock. '€œWe'€™ve lost decades of hard work,'€ Paulus said, crying.

CEPP executive director and political science lecturer Reni Suwarso was also stunned, saying that she and her team had held a meeting at the CEPP office the night before to prepare for a seminar.

'€œWhat'€™s left from our office is only a printer, several laptops and some documents I insisted on bringing to the seminar venue,'€ she said.

Lecturer Bambang Shergi said he estimated the total loss reached up to Rp 5 billion. (US$410,000), excluding the collection of archives and books.

'€œThe loss is about Rp 5 billion for the building. Rp 2 billion or Rp 3 billion will be covered by insurance,'€ he was quoted as saying by tribunnews.com.

The dean of the UI School of Social and Political Sciences, Arie Susilo, said the books lost in the blaze were valuable faculty assets.

'€œWe have lost 3,000 books, which are collections of sociologist Iwan Gardono Sudjatmiko,'€ he said. Iwan collected the books when he was studying at US-based Harvard University, and kept them in the faculty library on the building'€™s third floor.