At approximately 1715 hours on Wednesday, Fire HQ received a commercial fire alarm for Dr. Alam's office inside the southern section of the first floor of 323-325 Central Avenue. This building is a 4 story, multiple use facility that includes a gymnastics program on the fourth floor, two churches, a karate business, courtroom, and many other offices. Arriving units, R1-Acting Chief Hanlon, E1-FF.Muscato, E3-FF.Ahrens, E4-FF.Piglowski, and L1-FF.Kirell found a smoke condition inside the building with occupants in the process of evacuating. On further investigation, heavy fire conditions were found on the first and second floors in the rear of the building. A primary search of the building was performed immediately, and no other occupants were found. While the primary search was being conducted initial attack of the fire began with hose lines being stretched through the interior of the first and second floor through the main entrance and central stairway. Initially units fighting the fire were able to hold their positions to allow a secondary search for occupants to be conducted; however the fire extended rapidly to all floors of the building and was already impinging on the roof support system. At that time, approximately 35 minutes into the incident, the fire department was forced to leave the building due to the extreme danger to personnel from rapid fire involvement and possible structure collapse. The focus then shifted to protecting adjoining structures and surrounding neighborhoods from the effects of the rapidly growing fire. Resources were already being gathered from surrounding fire companies. At the height of the incident 15 fire companies were involved in the incident with approximately 25 pieces of equipment. 10 city fire hydrants were utilized and two pumper relays were established utilizing Lake Erie. 4 aerial devices, (Dunkirk Ladder 1, Fredonia Tower 18, Westfield Truck 291, and Mayville Truck 251) were in operation and approximately 7,000 gallons per minute were flowing on the fire. The fire building experienced several partial collapses and the adjoining Social Services building were severely damaged. The North County Office Building received smoke and water damage, but was spared fire or structural damage; procession was turned back over to the building owner approximately 24 hours after the fire began.Attempts to secure a contractor to demolish the original fire building began on the night of the fire. Central Avenue and Lark Street were closed from West Third to West Fourth due to the incident. Dunkirk Fire Crews remained on fire watch, manning the scene and operating hose lines off the roof of 319 Central until operations concluded and the fire was determined to be completely out at 1128 hours on March 2nd. The cause of the fire was determined to be electrical. All Dunkirk Professional Firefighters spent countless hours on the fire scene, and every member was involved in the operation.We would like to thank everybody for their assistance, fire companies, citizens, and organizations. There were numerous donations to the firefighters during the incident. COMING SOON-LIST OF MEDIA ARTICLES RELATED TO FIRE ALONG WITH MANY VIDEOS AND PHOTOS. (PHOTOS BY PAUL TRIPPY, ALLEN HOLLANDER, AND THOMAS BROWN.)PHOTOS OF EARLY FIRE CONDITIONS
PHOTOS OF FIRE PROGRESSING THROUGH STRUCTURE IN DAYLIGHT
PHOTOS OF FIRE PROGRESSING THROUGH STRUCTURE AFTER DARK
PHOTOS OF FIRE BUILDING AFTER ROOF COLLAPSE
PHOTOS OF FIRE BUILDING THE NEXT MORNING
4/1/10 - PHOTOS FROM KIM HANLON GALLERY 1
4/1/10 - PHOTOS FROM KIM HANLON GALLERY 2
4/1/10 - PHOTOS FROM DAN MICHALAK
