The Place Where Ludington Talks
Downtown Shelby Is On Fire.... Literally!
I arrived home tonight to see flames erupting from the top of some local businesses. Apparently not to long before I arrived home a fire had started in one of at least 4 involved businesses that included a bar, laundromat, mexican eatery and a pizza place. The fire department hadn't arrived yet but was there within a few minutes. I grabbed my camera and took some photos that are posted below. The nearest I got was just about kitty corner from where the fire was happening, didn't have any problem feeling the heat from that distance. Needless to say I was a bit surprised to arrive home and see what was going on. I know this town is a boring town and we generally don't have that much excitement but I could do without this kind of excitement.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by XLFD on
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Wow. Great scoop, Dave. Those businesses are sure kicking out a lot of flames. Hope they are able to contain it.
In a downtown fire like that, there may be a lot of damage to neighboring structures just from the heat kicking out, and of course the potential for fire spread to more structures is always likely due to their closeness.
Any idea yet how, where the fire started?
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Permalink Reply by Dave on
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Unofficially, I've heard that the fire started in the Pizza place.. but at this point I'm thinking its a little early to be making that assumption. All 3 of the business are a part of a similar style of building.. essentially all part of one building except the laundromat didn't have a 2nd story. The neighbor said that he believes that a 4th business is also involved which was located next to the pizza place, formerly it was called the Wooden Nickel but starting earlier this year it was changed over to a Mexican eatery.
Judging by what I see now, it looks like they have the fire pretty well tamed now. I'm sure the big ladder truck from Whitehall helped out quite a bit being able to attack the flames from above instead of just from street level. Problem now though is the smoke as its being blown in different directions and needless to say, it doesn't smell good.... real acrid, nasty smell.. might have to close the windows if it doesn't clear up soon which would suck since its a bit warm still around here.
I imagine by noontime tomorrow that we'll know a lot more about what happened. Ironically, back in the 80's my folks owned and operated a 'ma & pa' type of pizza place (similar to the one that burned tonight), and one summer a business 3 doors down from us caught fire (it was later learned that it was arson). Luckily for the folks the fire didn't quite make it down to where our pizza place was, the local and nearby fire departments were able to get things taken care of.
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Interesting that 7&4 didn't have anything. Other local channels did cover it... 9&10, 13 and channel 8 have had (and probably still have) reporters on scene. Some of the pictures above are available to view on the WOOD TV 8 website.
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Permalink Reply by masonco on
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I did not get to turn to 9 &10 this AM since I had to run to Traverse City to work today. I have noticed that 7&$ covers more the eastern part of the state and 9&10 cover more the western side. I don't get wood or tv 13 except their facebook updates.
Were those pictures on 9 &10 yours Dave?
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9&10 did use a few pictures for the coverage earlier in the day.. my mom caught some of the coverage during the 7am hour and recognized the pictures from when I showed them to her last night. Channel 3 out of Kalamazoo covered the fire and used one of my pics as well during their early broadcast as well.. funny thing with that was I don't recall emailing them any pictures.. apparently they got the pic off of Facebook though as they did give me a photo credit that said Facebook after my name.
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Permalink Reply by Willy on
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Maybe X could answer this question. How could this fire spread so fast that noone called it in before it grew so large. Was there a time lapse due to the distance the fire equipment had to travel or was it that noone noticed the fire until it was to late. I can see one building getting this out of control before it's noticed but not multiple buildings. Maybe the fire firefighters were there on time but couldn't contain the fire due to a lack of a proper water supply? Something doesn't seem right here. Looking at the 3rd photo from the top the building on the left is burning from the back but the building to the right is burning from the front.
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I suspect part of the problem might be that the buildings involved were all fairly old structures... would imagine the building methods and regulations at the time were not as stringent as they would be in more recent times. Obviously I'm no expert though so I'm only speculating... would also be interested to hear what X has to say on that particular question.
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Dave's prognosis is a good start, and even though I have no degree in Fire Science, several FF and FF officer training classes do give you a little more insight on such fires to give me some 'advanced speculation'.
The buildings from what I understand were all interconnected, and so you can generally expect when one gets fully involved the rest would follow. Being older buildings they probably have insufficient (or none) fire suppression systems (sprinklers) or lack hard-wired alarm systems due to less stringent codes.
Older building codes also allowed for quick spread of fire due to balloon construction, which may have been used here.
In a balloon-frame building, the studs run two or more stories high from the foundation to the eave line. At the floor line, a horizontal board called a ribbon board is nailed to the studs. The joists rest on the ribbon board. The channels between the studs may be open from the cellar to the attic, and the joist channels (space between the joists) are open to the stud channels. Thus, fire can spread through all the interconnected spaces from cellar to attic and across the ceiling.
That may have happened here, it started in one business, and the flame spread along the ceiling areas and non-fire stairs after it became involved in the first building. Present-day methods use firestopping (firewalls/stairs). If the initial detection of this fire was due to flames being seen, it probably couldn't have been saved even if the SFD was having a meeting night just down the road.
I did happen to notice the first WOOD article said something about this starting in the sport's bar, but that has been moved back to as yet undetermined. I presume the original guess was probably correct, likely being the Shelby Chief's original summation. These are usually on target.
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