Fire broke out in the former headquarters of the Highland Park Fire Department Sunday afternoon, just weeks before construction is set to begin on a new headquarters across the street.
Three trucks from the city's brigade responded to the 3:30 p.m. blaze, including one truck driven by Chief Dave Peek, still dressed for church. The fire started in the hose tower of the abandoned building on Gerald Street near Woodward Avenue.
"Once it gets going, you basically gotta let it burn itself out," Peek said, after helping one of the firefighters aim a hose at burning embers inside the tower.
"There's nothing left to do but tear it down."
The fire was one of four that pocked a cloudy Father's Day in Highland Park, including one at an old warehouse on Pasadena Street at Woodward Avenue and two small fires put out by residents in = an apartment building at Richton Street and Hamilton Avenue. Peek said he's had days of 10 fires.
"You never know at the beginning of the day what you are going to get," he said.
Bystanders watched the teams extinguish the blaze from the street, from porches, and even from balconies at a nearby highrise. The thick smoke made for a surreal backdrop as carnival rides spun and whirred at the nearby Model T Plaza shopping center.
The city working on finalizing permits with the state to begin construction on the new headquarters. In the meantime, the fire department is housed on Oakland Parkway, said Peek
The stairs leading up to the hose tower are still navigable, said Peek, leading him to believe the blaze was intentional, and that it could be the same person or people that set both the warehouse blaze earlier that day, and the fire that gutted an abandoned hotel two blocks south of the headquarters at the end of May.
"They live close. They don't go far," he said.
Copyright 2012 - Detroit Free Press
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