Fire in Downtown Champaign, IL

There was a fire in a historic building in downtown Champaign, IL today. The law office my wife used to work in, Dobbins, Fraker, Tennant, Joy & Perlstein, was a few doors down from the fire. The law office suffered water and smoke damage. Photos from the local newspaper are online here.

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The following story is from the local newspaper, The News Gazette

DOWNTOWN BLAZE CONSUMES HISTORIC BUILDING
By Meg Thilmony and Mike Monson
Friday, November 7, 2008 9:43 AM CDT

CHAMPAIGN — The 1870s-era Metropolitan Building caught on fire early Friday morning, collapsing under the flames.

No injuries have been reported.
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The intersection of Neil and Church streets will be closed all day, officials said. Neil Street southbound is blocked at Washington Street.

Flames were shooting 100 feet in the air when firefighters arrived at about 5:20, said Deputy Fire Chief Tim Wild. About 10 minutes after they arrived, the building collapsed.

The building, on the National Register of Historic Places, is at the southwest corner of Church and Neil streets. It most recently housed The Estate Sale and was under renovation.

The law office building just south of the Metropolitan also has suffered heavy damage, according to Wild.

Flames shoot from the Metropolitan Building at the corner of Main and Neil streets in downtown Champaign early Friday morning.

Renee Monfort, a partner in the law firm of Dobbins Fraker Tennant Joy & Perlstein, said the building at 215 N. Neil St. had smoke, fire and water damage.

"We had fire on the third floor and the roof; there's water damage throughout. There's water on the first floor and ceiling tiles have collapsed," and firefighters are concerned the north wall will collapse, Monfort said.

Larry Happ of the city's building safety division said, "You can see through" the north wall of the law office. He said the city has brought in a structural engineer to evaluate the building and wall.

"We don't want the roof collapsing," he said.

Several streets leading to the heart of Champaign were blocked, and fire hoses snaked down Main Street in front of One Main. Bricks from the collapsed building lay across the street all the way to M2 on Neil development.

Windows at M2 were cracked from the heat.

Power is out to the 200 block of North Neil Street, according to fire department spokeswoman Dena Schumacher. The department will bring in another ladder truck to spray down the building, which she said is full of embers.

Investigators won't be able to seek the cause until all the embers have been extinguished and they can get in the building, Schumacher said.

"It could be days," she said, adding that firefighters may be dealing with hot spots all day.

She planned to work with business owners to get them into their buildings.

Wild said there was no one in the building, and there were no injuries. He said the Metropolitan Building was under construction, so it didn’t have the same fire protection features as a normal building.

Firefighters knew they couldn’t save the building, so they focused their efforts on containing the fire, Wild said. Ladder trucks sprayed a steady stream of water on the building directly south of the Metropolitan Building, as the rising sun illuminated the scene. That building’s roof had been on fire, Wild said, and firefighters were checking the building out for more fire.

Embers flew around the Champaign area and started a small fire on the roof of the Orpheum Children’s Science Museum, a block away. That fire was quickly put out, Wild said, but firefighters were looking inside the building to make sure the fire didn’t spread.

In addition to the Champaign department, firefighters from Urbana, Savoy, Edge Scott, Eastern Prairie and St. Joseph assisted.

Ben Wagner lives in an apartment above Guido’s, 2 E. Main St., across the street from the Metropolitan Building. He said he was still awake from working at SOMA, a downtown bar, when he realized about 5:15 a.m. something was wrong.

“There were flames coming out of the second story. There were windows popping out. I called 911 and they said they had already heard about it." he said. "About two or three minutes later, police got here and about a minute later the first fire engine pulled up and started to pour water on it."

“Pretty quickly, the majority of the facade came down. It was pretty scary.”

Carlos Nieto, owner of Guido’s and several other downtown bars, was watching the fire from Main Street before 6 a.m. He said the heat from the fire had cracked windows at Guido’s, but that he expected to be open today.

“Most of the damage to our building is superficial,” Nieto said. We should be OK.”
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