SPRINGFIELD — Firefighter Glen Carpenter unrolled a hose to trail behind him Sunday morning as he ventured down into the subbasement below The Student Prince Cafe & The Fort Restaurant to investigate heavy smoke.
It’s the best way, he said Monday, to make sure he could find his way out again if he needed to.
“When you have a cellar like that’s divided up and has been renovated many times,” he said Monday. “If you get turned around...”
He didn’t finish the sentence. But he did make plans Monday to go back and do a site survey of the The Fort so he and other firefighters can learn the layout when the building is not filling with smoke.
Carpenter and his fellow firefighters met Monday with two of Student Prince’s owners — Andy Yee and Peter Picknelly — and General Manager Bill Porter brought lunch to Springfield Fire Headquarters as a thank you.
“You saved The Fort,” Picknelly, chairman and CEO of Peter Pan Bus Lines said. “You our are heroes every day. You run into situations where people are running out.”
Porter and his crew smelled smoke Sunday morning while preparing to open for lunch. Firefighters traced the fire to a burning electrical panel in bowels of the building and three storefronts away from The Fort.
The Fort reopened Monday for lunch. Porter expects 240 guests Monday night for the last of The Fort’s annual game dinners. The German restaurant is in its 85th year of operation.
He said The Fort is relying on generator power as the new electrical panel won’t be in place until Tuesday.
“When you hear fire, your heart just sinks,” Yee said.
Fire Commissioner Bernard Calvi said the fire’s location and the amount of rolling smoke was very concerning .
“You had smoke coming out of things that shouldn’t have had smoke coming out,” Calvi said . “When you have a cast-iron fitting in a door, and you see smoke curling out around that fitting . That’s not good.”
Picknelly said a fire the building could have been catastrophic. The stein collection alone numbers more than 1,700.
“There are things in that restaurant that are irreplaceable,” Picknelly said. “It’s like a museum.”
Back in 2014, it looked like the Student Prince might close for good.
Picknelly, Yee and father-and-son business consultants Michael K. Vann and Kevin B. Vann bought The Fort from the Scherff family, renovated it and re-opened it.
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