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Fire sweeps legacy away: Empty Johnstown factories now ash
(Times Union (Albany, NY) (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Apr. 25--JOHNSTOWN -- This city today is sorting out the toll created by Thursday's massive fire: four leveled factory buildings, several homes damaged by windswept embers, closed streets and a lingering sense of disruption.
Nearly 100 firefighters from three counties battled the blaze, which officials said began accidentally at about 9 a.m. in a vacant factory building on West State Street. None of the buildings was in use, but five workers trying to rehabilitate one structure were inside when the fire started and escaped unharmed.
William Brown, a neighbor from 29 N. Melcher St., was in his backyard when he saw smoke rising over his garage. He ran inside and called 911 before joining the gathering crowd in the street.
"One building was fully engulfed," Brown said. "Then it spread to the next building, and the next. Then a Dumpster up the street caught on fire. It was like something from a movie."
Brown could only watch as the siding on his house melted and dripped toward the ground like frosting on a cake left in the summer sun.
His son, Harold Fancher, who lives up the hill at 23 N. Melcher St., climbed on a neighbor's roof and began to douse embers with a garden hose.
"They were hot ashes," Fancher said, "bigger than a baseball."
Smoke could be seen and smelled more than three miles away; five blocks were closed. Dozens of office buildings and homes had to be evacuated as chunks of smoldering debris started secondary fires on brush piles and garbage cans nearly a half mile away.
"That's what made it very difficult to get under control," Mayor Sarah Slingerland said.
Matthew Chest, 24, was sleeping in his 20 N. Melcher St. apartment when he was awakened by an explosion. He jumped out of bed, threw on some clothes and ran out the front door before hearing a second explosion less than a minute later.
Chest, wearing sky blue shorts and a white T-shirt, looked to his right toward West State Street. At the bottom of the hill, black smoke began pouring out of the windows of the four-story Gordon Finishing building. The flames followed and other residents began running out of their homes and into the street.
The sunny afternoon carried a mild breeze that would have been refreshing if not for its ability to spread the flames. As the fire engulfed the factory buildings, witnesses said it grew large enough to be seen miles away.
At a Stewart's convenience store five blocks away, manager Stacey Ladd said she saw an ember land in a nearby trash can, setting debris on fire.
By noon, the flames were gone, but firefighters continued to douse the factory site as a loader knocked down the few remaining brick walls standing. Thick smoke continued to fill the sky, and a firefighter on a ladder disappeared into the cloud of gray more than 40 feet above the ground.
Firefighters were scattered around the scene, chomping on sandwiches and slurping purple and green snow cones that had been handed out by teenagers pulling coolers on wheels. The crowd chatted. Pointed. Took videos on their cellphones. Two men ordered a pizza as they watched the cleanup from a nearby lawn.
The Red Cross of Northeastern New York was assisting two people from the same family.
"We're basically going to stay here until people get home from work and tell us what they need," said Red Cross spokeswoman Siobhan Gallagher.
As the embers flitted onto nearby residences, a State Police helicopter flew overhead using thermal imaging equipment in search of any hot spots on residential structures, Mayor Slingerland said.
By late afternoon, the factories had been reduced to a tangle of brick and wood. The giant claws of a backhoe bit into what remained of the once towering buildings as a bulldozer assembled the rubble into a pile.
The empty factory buildings were legacies of the former industrial strength of this Fulton County city. Johnstown is one of a string of faded Mohawk Valley mill communities that have struggled in recent decades, with limited success, to overcome the loss of manufacturing jobs after the tanneries and leather factories closed.
In the wake of this post-industrial collapse, Main Street in Johnstown, Gloversville and neighboring communities became zones of decline marked by vacant storefronts, crumbling sidewalks and limited prospects for future economic development.
One of the structures destroyed, the former Lee Dye building, was being renovated and just had a new roof, fire officials said.
Fire Chief Bruce Heberer said officials believe the blaze originated in the Gordon Finishing building. Other buildings destroyed included a real estate company and Arrow Leather, city and fire officials said.
"It was purely accidental and is not considered suspicious," Heberer said. Several firefighters were treated for exhaustion, but no injuries were reported, he said.
The mayor said no hazardous materials were inside any of the buildings, all of which had been purchased by a New Jersey developer about two years ago.
Slingerland, standing across the street watching the destruction, noted that the community is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year, while the Fire Department is marking 200 years.
"I'm thinking this is not a good way to celebrate our anniversary," she said, before thanking a group of passing firefighters.
David Filkins can be reached at 454-5456 or by e-mail at dfilkins@timesunion.com.
To see more of the Albany Times Union, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesunion.com.
Copyright (c) 2008, Albany Times Union, N.Y.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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