DELTAVILLE, Va. -- Fire gutted the Deltaville Maritime Museum, and although some artifacts dating to the 19th century were rescued, work continued Thursday to tally losses including two early 20th century boats.
Firefighters were dispatched at 6:12 p.m. Wednesday and found that a pavilion structure in the rear of the museum had already burned and the blaze had spread to the roof system of the main building, said Capt. Paul Murray of the Lower Middlesex Volunteer Fire Department.
As the situation stabilized, a salvage operation was started by the scores of volunteers and firefighters at the scene, said Murray.
Many items were removed and turned over to the care of the museum personnel, Murray said, but he was concerned about what may have remained in the building.
"It's one of the more renowned maritime museums preserving the history of the Chesapeake Bay," said Murray.
Some items, he said, "we were able to remove with very little or no damage." But, he added, much of the roof caved in during the blaze.
The cause of the fire remains unknown. Murray said that while Virginia State Police investigators were on the scene, the blaze is not believed to be suspicious.
Raynell Smith, director of the museum, said salvage and restoration efforts were continuing this morning.
"So much of the ceiling fell down on things," she said. "We don't know if they are OK until we pick up the ceiling and look under it."
Some vintage boat tools and other objects were saved, she said, as was an 1862 Civil War campaign chair used by Col. John S. Mosby as part of an exhibit on the war in the area, said Smith.
There was, however, substantial damage to a number of boat models in the museum, and in a shed outside the building, two vintage vessels were lost. One was a three logged bottom sailing canoe that had been built in 1920 and restored, and the other was a sora skiff that was built of cypress in the 1930s from Virginia's Dragon Run Swamp.
A fire safe with records survived the fire, as did the museum's computer hard drives. Some original art hanging on wall was lost, but other framed images of bay boats and their history were prints that can be reproduced, she said.
Overall, though, Smith said it was still too early to provide an exact accounting. She said there was a spirit to move ahead at the museum that annually draws up to 25,000 people to its exhibits and programs.
"We're forging ahead," she said. "We're saddened but we're not discouraged."
The fire is the second major blow in a little more than a year for Deltaville, which suffered millions of dollars in damage when tornadoes and storms tore through the area in April 2011.
The fire prompted an outpouring of support from local volunteer fire departments. In addition to the Lower Middlesex firefighters, units responded from Hartfield, Urbanna and Water View in Middlesex County, along with firefighters from Mathews, Gloucester and Lancaster counties. He said at least 65 firefighters were involved overall.
The blaze struck the week of the museum's annual family boat-building clinic, in which participants work together to construct skiffs. Eight of those boats were in the pavilion area that sustained the most damage, Murray said.
Sam Hall of western Henrico was among those in the boat-building program whose boat was destroyed in the blaze.
"They are all destroyed," he said, adding, "the real loss is the museum."
Hall, who had been in the boat building program with his father-in-law and two children, had left Deltaville at 3 p.m. Wednesday and went back this morning to see the damage.
"It was pretty devastating," he said.
Copyright 2012 - Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
