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Rubble to rubble: Watch Uptown blaze from drone, see photos

03/30/2015

March 30--Rubble inside the collapsed building on South Wyoming Street smoldered on and off for 44 hours before flames flared around 4 a.m. Sunday and quickly consumed the entire five-story structure.

Firefighters had monitored the building since smoke was first seen Friday morning, and one engine was already on scene when flames broke out. Other engines arrived quickly and doused the building from three points, including from a ladder bucket raised almost as high as the remaining walls.

At one point almost the entire west wall collapsed, spilling bricks across Wyoming Street to the wheels of the ladder truck. Firefighters anticipated that, so no one was below when it came down, said Butte-Silver Bow Fire Chief Jeff Miller. The south wall collapsed shortly before that, he said.

Most of the fire appeared to be out by about 7:30 a.m., and the adjacent Whalen Tire building to the east and Steele's furniture store across the alley to the south did not catch fire. Sandbags were brought and lined across the base of the Steele's store to protect if from water used to combat the blaze.

Smoke was first seen coming from the pile of boards, bricks and other debris at 750 S. Wyoming St. around 8 a.m. Friday, and firefighters doused the rubble for more than an hour but could never locate the source. An excavator was brought in Friday afternoon and removed as much debris as possible.

"As far as we could get in and as deep as we could go, we still never could reach it," Miller said Sunday. "It was way deep. We knew it was coming from somewhere so we kept eyes on it all weekend and monitored it.

"We had a lot of high winds yesterday which kind of fanned it, but it wasn't until about 4 this morning that it got to a point where it caught some fuel and air," he said. "When I left my house you could see flames about 100 feet in the air above the roofline, so it just really took off."

Community Enrichment Director Ed Randall was at the scene shortly after the fire broke out and others, including Chief Executive Matt Vincent, Public Works Director Dave Schultz and County Attorney Eileen Joyce, arrived shortly afterwards. All have said the long-vacant warehouse building was dangerous since much of it initially caved in on June 28, 2014.

The county and building owner Neil "Joe" Lynch have been embroiled in a legal dispute on what caused the initial collapse and what should be done about it. The county filed a court action in November seeking to tear down the rest of the building on its own, saying it's a public danger.

District Judge Loren Tucker has ruled on parts of the case, but it has been stuck in limbo for weeks now with no further direction from him. County officials have been anxiously awaiting a decision and said the judge told them Friday he expects to rule early this week.

"This has been a public safety concern since the first day after it came down," Vincent said as he watched firefighters battle the blaze. "When you have smoke, you're going to have fire in a structure like this.

"We took the proper precautions, and it's a good thing we had a full crew here to make sure we contained it when it did take off," he said. "All it took was the right amount of oxygen to get whatever was burning down there, and it took off."

Miller said crews removed as much debris as possible Friday but the pile was simply too large and too deep into the basement to safely excavate enough.

"It's unfortunate that this has happened, but it was a dangerous building from day one," Miller said.

Vincent commended the firefighters.

"Thank God for our firefighters," he said. "Now I hope everyone got a little wiser on this."

As the day progressed, firefighters were still at work, though the fire had been put out.

"We're still mopping up," said BSB Fire Chief Jeff Miller on Sunday afternoon. "The firefighting is done; just putting out hot spots. It's a very large building with a lot of square footage. We'll be there for a couple of days, probably. Our game plan is done; the fire is contained."