The day after a massive fire gutted a Lawrence hotel, investigators were in the process of determining what started it.

On Tuesday, officials said they had condemned the building and were coordinating plans to put up security fencing and stabilize what was left of the burnt-out structure — now largely covered in ice from being watered through the previous night, even as temperatures dipped to 8 below zero with dangerously cold wind chills.

Stabilization is needed so investigators can safely enter to begin their on-scene work, but that won’t happen until Wednesday at the earliest, Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical Division Chief James King said.

In the meantime, he said investigators had begun interviewing staff and tenants of Americas Best Value Inn, 515 McDonald Drive, where the fire was reported shortly before noon Monday.

“The interviews are generating some leads that are being tracked down,” King said. “We’re doing as much as we can until we’re able to get in and do the physical work. Fire always leaves a lot of clues behind that we can rely on to guide us.”

King said it was too soon to say what the fire’s specific point of origin was or whether there were indications it was anything other than accidental in nature.

King said the hotel had 11 tenants leasing five rooms, plus four staffers, though not everyone was on site when the fire broke out. He said the American Red Cross was assisting the displaced.

Despite reporting Monday that there were no injuries, King said Tuesday that four people were assessed and released at the scene for minor injuries — a hotel employee for smoke exposure and three firefighters for sprains and falls. One of those was a firefighter who fell through a floor inside the building in the first hour of the fire, before crews pulled out to fight it from the outside.

Late Monday night, concerned a portion of the building was in danger of collapsing, emergency personnel evacuated eight residents from the adjacent University Terrace Apartments, King said. Heavy machinery pulled the threatening portion down, he said.

The fire was deemed under control about 10:30 p.m. Monday, King said. Crews continued to hose down the smoldering structure — putting out flare-ups and hotspots — throughout the night and into Tuesday morning.

The overnight low in Lawrence hit 8 degrees below zero right around sunrise Tuesday, with a low wind chill value of 25 degrees below zero, according to a National Weather Service of Topeka meteorologist.

King said firefighters dealt with the cold by rotating crews frequently and changing wet gear as needed. Warming vehicles were provided by the city transit system and Douglas County Emergency Management.

He said the cold caused some equipment challenges but nothing that firefighters weren’t able to overcome.

Firefighters had been battling the blaze since just before noon Monday, when they arrived on scene to find fire in the lowest level of the three-story wood-frame structure.

King said it was too early to tell whether or how long the fire had been burning before that time.

Firefighters entered the building and battled the fire offensively for about an hour before changing their approach, King said. He said they retreated to battle the fire defensively — or from the outside — after determining the fire had spread, probably through utility passages and other spaces, and was compromising the structure and firefighters’ safety.

“It was able to get ahead of us faster than we were able to cut it off,” he said.

The building did not have a sprinkler system, King said.

However, he said, it is old enough that sprinkler systems were not required when it was built.

Previous coverage Jan. 15, 2018 — Lawrence motel partially collapses during firefighters’ hourslong battle with flames, smoke

King said the building is a total loss but that he did not have a dollar figure for the damages as of Tuesday.

The building’s appraised value is $350,700, according to Douglas County property records.

The registered owner of the building and the land it sits on is Jinal LLC, of the same address, according to property records.

Navin Patel is the registered owner of that entity, according to Kansas secretary of state filings.

The property used to be a Super 8, also owned by Patel, according to previous Journal-World reports.

In 2016, Patel, a Shawnee resident at that time, was convicted of attempted second-degree murder and criminal threat after stabbing his wife at the Super 8. Patel was not sentenced to prison but instead was ordered to complete programs to help him with mental health and alcohol problems.

The Journal-World was unable to locate owners or tenants of the hotel outdoors at the fire scene on Monday.

Americas Best Value Inn is among brands under the umbrella of the RLH Corporation, according to the RLH website.