Fire Destroys Massachusetts Education Building

The state fire marshal is investigating the cause of an early morning fire Wednesday that destroyed a two-story education building at the Massachusetts Audubon Society's Laughing Brook Sanctuary.

Sept. 2, 2004

HAMPDEN, Mass. (AP) -- The state fire marshal is investigating the cause of an early morning fire Wednesday that destroyed a two-story education building at the Massachusetts Audubon Society's Laughing Brook Sanctuary.

The education center, which once housed a bookstore as well as meeting rooms and classrooms, had been vacant for two years and the society was planning to demolish the building this fall if it could not find a tenant, said Mary Shanley-Koeber, regional director for Mass Audubon.

``It was a very, very large building and there were other program issues as well,'' Shanley-Koeber said. ``We plan to clear the site as soon as possible.''

The society closed a small zoo in 1996 and scaled back its operations at the sanctuary, built around the estate of children's book author Thornton Burgess.