Fire claims downtown landmark

The International Falls Fire Department responded to the scene at 401 Third Street around 3:45 a.m. Portions of the city’s main street were closed to traffic throughout the day as firefighters battled the blaze which rendered the three-story, brick building a loss.

When crews responded to a “possible structure fire near the post office,” said International Falls Fire Department Chief Jerry Jensen, they found flames coming from all three levels on the south side of the building, facing the post office.

“It was a bad fire,” Jensen said. The downtown location, coupled with the upper floors of the building being vacant, contributed to the fire being one of the most dangerous he has fought in this area, he said.

The first two floors, Jensen said, remained mostly structurally stable while the roof collapsed. Each floor was about 3,000 square feet. Boise Inc. structural engineers were brought in to discuss the building and options for navigating the compromised structure to fight the fire.

“I’m just very happy nobody was injured,” Jensen said.

Safety of the city’s fire team was cited by Jensen as the reason they did not enter the building to fight the fire from the inside. Because the building was unoccupied, Jensen could not justify the risk of sending people inside.

“I wasn’t going to send firefighters into a building like that,” he said.

Instead, crews worked from the street level, from aerial ladders on the truck and from the roof of an adjoining building to battle the fire.

Besides the safety of human life, Jensen said the next most important task for the team was to prevent the fire from jumping into nearby businesses, most notably the adjoining Wells Fargo bank. Neighboring buildings were unaffected, other than some smoke in nearby businesses and damage to brickwork at the bank which occurred as they worked to gain access to the fire, Jensen said. Firefighters used the Wells Fargo roof to fight the fire from the west side.

A team of about 25 International Falls fire personnel were on the scene much of the day. Fort Frances also supplied firefighters and a taller, 75-foot aerial lift truck. The Falls team had been using their tallest, 50-foot, truck and were not able to get above the smoldering rooftop. The Canadian truck was helpful in getting above the fire, Jensen said.

Littlefork Fire Department also responded to the scene. Jensen said unfortunate timing of another fire in Littlefork had that team called to respond to its city’s emergency.

“We don’t have fires like this very often,” Jensen said of the area’s double fires Monday. He credited and thanked both the Fort Frances and Littlefork fire departments for their assistance and noted this was a good showing of mutual aid in neighboring communities.

“It was excellent working with Fort Frances and Littlefork,” he said. “They were a great asset to us.”

In the morning, Pelland-Swenson brought a truck with a medicine ball to attempt to break through the east side of the building. The ball, Jensen said, bounced off the side of the building and did not damage the nearly 90-year-old brick structure.

Flames continued in the upper levels and roof of the building until after noon, Jensen said. Teams made scaffolding to get into the building’s upper level cavities to extinguish any remaining hot spots on the roof.

Jensen said his goal is to level the building as soon as possible.

Cause

The fire appeared to have been caused by an electrical arc at a junction box located in an interior wall on the ground floor of the store, according to Cpt. Tom Lynch of the International Falls Police Department.

The fire then traveled up a common, open stairwell from the ground floor and vented through the roof like a chimney, he said.

No foul play was suspected, Lynch confirmed. Age and load of the electrical wiring were suspected to have contributed to the fire.

Lynch said the building was a total loss, but that with the exception of the roof, which was about 70 percent collapsed, the integrity of the rest of the structure remained sound. Investigation teams were able to do their work on all three floors of the building, he said.

Crews from fire investigation units from the city, county and state were on the scene Monday and Tuesday for about five hours combing through what remained inside the building.

A building with history

Bob Peterson, Koochiching County auditor/treasurer, continues to own the building that was Ace Hardware for 67 years from 1934 to 2001. The building was constructed in 1923 and has since been a fixture in the downtown landscape.

“There’s lots of history in that building,” Peterson said Monday. He had been in Duluth when he received word that the building had caught on fire.

Peterson’s father, Frank Peterson, joined the hardware business in 1937 and purchased the building and store outright some years later. Bob Peterson purchased the building from his father in the 1970s.

“There are a lot of memories of people — tenants, customers and especially employees,” Peterson said of the emotional impact of losing a building that has been a “landmark on that corner for years.”

The upper floors, Peterson said, had been vacant for about 30 years. They had once served as apartments. The lower level had been rented by Jane Christenson for her shop, No Place Like Home.

Peterson said it is too early to make plans for the future, but he would like to see something built on the 25-foot-wide lot.

No Place Like Home

Jane Christenson said she was called shortly after 5 a.m. to notify her that her shop, No Place Like Home, was involved in the fire. She rented the ground floor of Peterson’s building for the home decor business she started there six years ago.

“I half expected to see a little fire in the back of the store and we’d fix it and move on,” she told The Journal about how she felt before arriving at the scene.

She said she spent much of the day Monday “watching in disbelief, mostly.”

“It’s hard to leave,” she said. “You put so much of your time into it. It wasn’t just an eight hour a day job .... Lots of time spent behind the scenes.”

Christenson said she had been in nursing for 25 years when she began looking for something to fulfill her creativity. She said she has greatly enjoyed having the shop and considered it a place to showcase the talent of people in the community.

Among the other local vendors who sold items in the shop, she refinished furniture and other household decorations. Much of what was sold in the store was either refinished or handmade by vendors, she said.

“I’ve been told it was a great addition to downtown and it will be missed,” Christenson said. “And I think it will.”

But for now, she said, she’s unsure what the future will hold for No Place Like Home.

She expressed her gratitude to friends and members of the community who have provided support.

“I’ve had a lot of encouragement from a lot of people in the community that have expressed that I do (open the shop again),” she said. She said the downtown area was the perfect place for such a shop in International Falls.

“Somehow I hope to continue that. I’m not sure what kind of look it’ll take on,” she said.

“The amount of calls I’ve gotten and messages of support and encouragement from the community is amazing,” she told The Journal through tears Tuesday.