Firefighters are going into day three at the scene of the Pioneer building in downtown St. Joseph and expect to be there over the Thanksgiving holiday.
Crews with the St. Joseph Fire Department arrived on scene at Francis and 5th Streets Monday shortly after 10:30 a.m. Even after the flames shooting up into the air died down firefighters have remained on scene continuously battling hot spots and pouring water on the smoldering rubble.
“Day three is pretty much a repeat of day two,” said Chief Training Officer Mike Neylon with the St. Joseph Fire Department. “We still have two trucks down there spraying hot spots as much as they can.”
He said they have taken down part of a wall that was preventing power officials from restoring power to the area but as of 11 a.m. Wednesday the success of restoring power had not yet been seen. Neylon said the building will continue to smolder for days if not weeks.
“We are not going to go into the building until the structure is safe for people to go in there and that’s up to engineers. That stubborn wall still appears to be ready to collapse but as of yet it’s hanging tough,” Neylon said.
Neylon said until crews can get into the building to investigate the fire, a cause cannot be determined.
“We will not know until we investigate it as much as we can and that’s going to require heavy equipment and other equipment that has to get in there to look around, sniff around and see what we can find. There’s no way of knowing what’s under those bricks it’s speculation and we can’t deal with speculation,” Neylon said.
Crews will be manning the fire in downtown St. Joseph over Thanksgiving.
“We’ll have a regular crew, 33 people on duty. And of course the rest of us will be on call as usual,” Neylon said. “To fire, police, public works, and God bless them the dispatchers in the Communication Center it’s just another day.”
When the St. Joseph Post asked him if there was anything the public could do to make their holiday a little better Neylon joked that cookies and pie are always nice.
“I’ve seen people bring a cake or two to the nearest fire house. That’s never a bad thing.” Neylon said. “We’re pretty well known for our affinity for pastries.”