The Eisenhower Executive Office Building, located in the White House campus, has caught fire today.

Firefighting crews of about 110 members and about 50 pieces of equipment were sent to the fire scene and the hundreds of workers were evacuated from the smoking building.

It took the fire squads about half an hour to contain the blaze. Some firefighters remained in the building to ventilate the smoke, a process that will take some time, Alan Etter, spokesman for the Washington D.C. fire department, said.

There were no deaths or injuries reported. The only known injury was of a U.S. Marine, who cut his hand while breaking a window so he could get onto a ledge. He was trapped inside the smoking building at the fifth floor.

After reaching the ledge he was intercepted by a fire crew which led him back down through the building to the medical staff. The Marine was given given oxygen after he was bandaged. He refused to be sent to the local hospital.

"It was a minor cut,'' Etter said.

The firefighters led others in the building who didn't evacuate to areas that were protected from the smoke. "It's a fairly big building,'' Etter said.

According to preliminary investigations the fire has started on the third floor. Investigators couldn’t establish the cause of the fire yet.

President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were in the White House when smoke started rising from the building. The two arrived at the scene and thanked the firefighter for a job well done. Cheney's ceremonial office in the building sustained smoke and water damage.

The historical Old Executive Office Building has lately received the official name of Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building and was formerly the State, War, and Navy Building. It is a federal office building next to the White House, on 17th Street, N.W., between Pennsylvania Avenue and New York Avenue, in Washington, D.C.

Many distinguished national figures took part in the historical events that have taken place within the Old Executive Office Building's granite walls. Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson, Gerald Ford, and George H. W. Bush all had offices in this building before becoming President.