FORKS — Clallam County Fire District No. 1 Chief Phil Arbeiter expects a charred corner in downtown Forks to remain fenced, secured and undemolished through Thanksgiving, he said Tuesday.
Tuesday night at their regular drill session, the 15-18 firefighters from the district’s Forks and Beaver stations who took part in quelling the towering early morning Oct. 29 blaze were to write their accounts of the fire, Arbeiter said.
The inferno gutted — without injuries — the former International Order of Odd Fellows hall at 35 N. Forks Ave. and the empty former Dazzled by Twilight souvenir store at the corner of North Forks Avenue and Division Street.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which determined that the fire appears to have started in an electrical conduit, will review the reports before releasing its own assessment of the blaze.
“I don’t think they’re going to do anything until they get the stuff from us,” Arbeiter said, estimating that might happen until later this week.
“I have no idea how long it will take the ATF crew to put this together,” he said.
“Once we give it to them, that will give us some idea of how long it will take” before the buildings are demolished, he said.
Demolition perhaps
Arbeiter said there is a “good probability” demolition won’t occur until after Thanksgiving.
“Knowing how these things work, I would almost say that there’s a good probability that if it’s not being secured by personnel, it will still be fenced off and have the no-trespassing signs on it,” he said.
After a tour of the fire scene last week, the ATF said the fire appeared to have started when water compromised an electrical conduit on the first floor of the former IOOF hall.
The second floor was home to the Rainforest Art Center, which leased the building from the city for $1 a year, and included a ballroom that doubled as a 150-seat theater.
A new heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system was installed a few months ago, art center spokesman Michael Gurling said in an earlier interview.
Also destroyed was the 21-year-old Tienda Latina Latin American grocery store, leaving manager Luis Perez and his wife jobless.
The store that had housed Dazzled by Twilight — which used as its theme the popular Twilight novel series — and, before that, the Fern Gallery and Olympic Pharmacy, was vacant when the fire was reported at 3:45 a.m. Oct. 29. It was extinguished by 6:30 that same morning.
Insurance
“It’s mostly up to the insurance companies and property owners as to how fast they can get going on the cleanup once the insurance companies get done with it,” Arbeiter said.
The IOOF building was insured by the city for $3.7 million.
Insurance investigators for parties with interests in the buildings are expected to arrive in Forks on Tuesday to begin an origins-and-cause investigation, City Attorney Rod Fleck said.
“Under their rules, they don’t accept verbatim what ATF says,” Fleck said.
He could not give an estimate on when demolition might take place.
“It depends on how long the origins-and-cause investigation takes them, and then we have to get a contractor out,” Fleck said.
Permits also will be required for demolition, he said.
The city suggested moving items that need testing to a mutually agreed-upon location so the site can be turned over to a contractor, Fleck said.
“They keep telling us it depends on what we find, it depends on what happens,” he said.
“We’ve had little control over this because we have to respect everyone’s property rights and interests they have, including their insurance interests.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
