{"id":9152,"date":"2011-06-10T03:34:48","date_gmt":"2011-06-10T08:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/?p=9152"},"modified":"2011-06-11T01:37:14","modified_gmt":"2011-06-11T06:37:14","slug":"cause-of-vw-pallet-fire-remains-under-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2011\/06\/10\/cause-of-vw-pallet-fire-remains-under-investigation\/","title":{"rendered":"VW Pallet fire still under investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Wooden pallets burn fiercely outside an old railroad building that housed Van Wert Pallet on Anderson Avenue. (Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fire and police officials are still investigating a fire that destroyed an old railroad building that had housed Van Wert Pallet for approximately the past six months.<\/p>\n

Van Wert Fire Chief Jim Steele noted Thursday afternoon that investigators from the State Fire Marshal\u2019s Office were on the scene for several hours that day poring through fire debris left from a fire that was reported at 4:35 a.m. Thursday.<\/p>\n

Chief Steele said 12 firefighters battled the blaze, with several of those still on the scene until after 2 p.m. on Thursday. \u201cWe spent quite a bit of time overhauling it,\u201d the fire chief said of the building, which was thought to be more than 100 years old (click here<\/a><\/strong> for more fire photos and a video).<\/p>\n

He also noted that Anderson Avenue was closed until more is done to make the building safer. The chief said the building had a partial wall collapse from the fire and that the wall on the street side was leaning, creating a hazard for anyone driving on Anderson Avenue and leading to the closure of the street until the building was stabilized or demolished.<\/p>\n

Chief Steele said he thought the building was originally called the carpentry shop and was likely used to repair locomotives and train cars. Several railroads reportedly used the building, beginning with the Cincinnati Northern Railroad, but also including the New York Central and Penn Central railroads.<\/p>\n

Spencer Wise, who now owns the building and operates Van Wert Pallet, said Thursday morning that the company made pallets and corrugated cardboard boxes at the site.<\/p>\n

Chief Steele said the fire consumed a large supply of pallets and cardboard, although a number of pallets escaped destruction in the blaze. The fire, which apparently started outside the building, later spread to the structure, causing significant damage there.<\/p>\n

Chief Steel said the fire department had done \u201cpreplanning\u201d on the building — evaluating what would have to be done in the event of a fire there — and also commended Wise and his employees for doing a good job of following the fire codes in the building.<\/p>\n

Pre-planning had noted the presence of LP tanks in the building, Chief Steele said, adding that the tanks were a concern to firefighters; however, he said he was pleased most of those tanks did not explode, although at least one did.<\/p>\n

The fire chief indicated that the age of the building and the way it was constructed probably made it susceptible to fire damage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a variety of tortional bars in the building and I could hear them ping when they let go,\u201d Chief Steele said of events leading up to the collapse of a portion of the structure.<\/p>\n

The fire chief said he was also pleased that temperatures had moderated Thursday morning from the 90-degree weather seen recently. “That was a godsend,” he noted.<\/p>\n

The fire chief reiterated on Thursday that the cause of the fire was still under investigation, with detectives from the Van Wert Police Department, as well as fire officials, involved in that investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor Fire and police officials are still investigating a fire that destroyed an old railroad building that had housed Van Wert Pallet for approximately the past six months. Van Wert Fire Chief Jim Steele noted Thursday afternoon that investigators from the State Fire Marshal\u2019s Office were on the scene for several hours that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-03 00:26:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}