Unstable Debris Delays Tenn. Fire Investigation in Knoxville

March 22--Fire investigators hope to begin combing through the debris of a burned downtown building Friday in hopes of finding the cause of the massive, two-alarm blaze.

And investigators hope they don't find any bodies among the collapsed roof trusses and rows of metal shelves still containing inventory in the defunct Industrial Belting & Supply Co. on Depot Avenue.

"Before we can get in there, we'll have to have the walls taken down," said Knoxville Fire Department Fire Investigator Capt. Darrell Whitaker. "It's too dangerous to go in there with these wobbly walls."

Firefighters at 1:40 p.m. Thursday surrendered the property to fire investigators, ending a battle that began at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday with the first report of flames shooting from the single-story, 14,000-square-foot building. Whitaker said a backhoe and front-end loader were tearing down the three-brick thick walls on the structure and hauling debris away.

"We're going to have to excavate this property layer by layer," Whitaker said.

Industrial Belting & Supply Co. closed a year ago. The company provided supplies to mills and mines. Rubber contents still in the building helped fuel flames that one witness said shot 50 feet high from the structure.

The property had been bought last year by a development concern that planned to create condominiums and office space in the structure.

Whitaker said he was told by the previous owners there was no insurance on the structure or the contents.

Icicles on Thursday morning hung down from the collapsed and twisted metal roof trusses as smoke wafted from hot spots throughout the scene. Knoxville Fire Department spokesman Capt. D.J. Corcoran said firefighters poured 288,000 gallons of water onto the flames before gaining control of the fire at 11:37 p.m.

Throughout the night and until 12:30 p.m. Thursday, a crew kept a stream of water from an elevated master stream on Engine 2 that shot 500 gallons a minute at the spirals of smoke emitted from the debris.

Sandy Clark, who owns A-1 Bonding Co. and the three buildings on Magnolia Avenue behind the burned structure, said her mother, Marie Owens, first reported the fire. Owens owns Marie's Olde Towne Tavern at 202 Magnolia Ave.

Owens learned of the blaze when a customer began yelling about the fire. The business has a patio on the rear section facing the burned building.

"Those flames were 50 feet high," Clark said. "The smoke was so bad you couldn't even see the patio."

Firefighters at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday ordered the tavern evacuated, Clark said, because of the potential danger to nearby structures.

"All the debris was blowing at the Old City," Clark said. "If it had been blowing this way, we'd been in trouble. As old as these buildings are, they'd caught fire bad."

Embers carried across railroad tracks and into the Old City so concerned firefighters that administrators had an engine stationed in the Old City to watch for rooftop fires ignited by windblown debris.

Corcoran said one fire did develop on the roof of The Melting Pot, 111 N. Central Ave., but it was quickly doused. No other fires were reported.

Corcoran said when firefighters first arrived at the Industrial Belting & Supply Co. building, half of the structure already was on fire. The 200-foot long and 70-foot wide building is divided into four equal sections by three fire walls, he said.

Because each fire wall of bricks has door openings, flames were able to breech one wall, allowing the blaze to consume two sections on the east side of the building. Firefighters used hand-held hoses to beat flames back from the doorway of a second fire wall, saving the west half the structure from the fire.

Corcoran said the first wall of the building collapsed about 10 p.m. Wednesday, indicating the blaze had been burning for quite a while before it was reported. Firefighters called a second alarm on the blaze, bringing nearly 50 personnel, seven pumpers and three aerial devices to the battle.

Corcoran said the previous owners complained of vagrants breaking into the building. He said the previous owners had welded doors shut and boarded up the building to discourage intruders.

Whitaker said it was apparent vagrants had been using the building because candles and other items were found in enclosed portions of the ceiling where the fire did not spread.

John Tullos, owner of American Refrigeration Sales and Services Inc., 317 Ogden Street, which is behind the burned building, said police have twice in recent months visited the structure because of vagrants invading the premises.