Photo by Paula Merritt / The Meridian StarFirefighters hose down the smoldering back side of the Mississippi Arts and Entertainment Experience construction site after a tar fire on the roof Wednesday morning. 

Officials say a Wednesday morning fire at the Mississippi Arts and Entertainment Experience construction site will not delay progress.

In fact, workers were seen on the site at 1 p.m. Wednesday, just a few hours after the fire was extinguished.

“It didn’t slow us down at all really,” said Bob Luke of LPK Architects, P.A. “There’s no significant damage at all, and any smoke damage that we see will not impact the schedule. We will still deliver the building for its April 27 opening.”

According to Meridian Fire Marshal Jason Collier, the fire department received the call at about 10:20 a.m. Large clouds of gray and black smoke were rising from the 58,000-square-foot museum site, located at Front Street and 22nd Avenue in Meridian. The smoke could be seen as far away as the Meridian airport.

No injuries were reported in the fire.

Collier said the fire, which has been ruled accidental, was caused by an overheated tar kettle. The kettle, he said, is “fed by propane and it’s essentially a fish cooker, with an open flame under a tank and tar. It can boil over if it has too much in it or it can get too hot and once the tar gets on the open flame it can catch on fire.”

“It happens,” Collier said. “It’s an inherent thing when you have a hot tar kettle like that — it’s a dangerous type of equipment. Stuff can happen, and there’s a lot that can go wrong. It’s something you have to be careful with.”

The MAX’s President and Chief Executive Officer Mark Tullos said he was able to breathe a sigh of relief after the “smoke cleared,” literally and figuratively.

“We’re lucky that it was just a small thing and it wasn’t a fire inside the building,” Tullos said. “I’m amazed at how fast the Meridian Fire Department was here and on top of it. Within three minutes, they said they were here and on the ground.”

Even after a stressful morning and early afternoon, Tullos was able to keep an afternoon meeting with a group of guests that included “major sponsors.”

“We’re going to keep rolling,” he said. “God blessed us.”

Meridian Mayor Percy Bland was also breathing easier on Wednesday afternoon.

“The fire marshal called me and told me they weren’t going to stop them from working — I feel that’s what we needed to hear,” Bland said. “That could have been a scary thing — that’s a $60 million investment there.”