Early video from South Otselic, NY fire that destroyed store, police station & apartments
More fire videos from FireCritic.com
Extensive raw video from Al Pagan that starts early in the response to the fire yesterday (Sunday) at the Cox Block Building in South Otselic, New York (Chenango County). The actually fire video starts at 2:10. Pay close attention at 9:09 in the video. Watch the somewhat isolated puff of smoke that comes out of the front of the building and seems to send some sort of debris rocketing across the street (freeze frame below). In addition watch the collapse on the video below from a TV station’s news coverage at the 1:20 point on the counter.
A small town in Upstate New York didn’t just lose a building; it lost its “heart and soul” when a fire ripped through a historic building Sunday, officials said.
Click here if the video above fails to play
The fire in downtown South Otselic destroyed the Cox Block. The general store, a satellite office for the Chenango County Sheriff’s Office and several apartments are gone.
“There were no fatalities, but this loss is devastating to our entire community and especially to those whose homes and livelihood are suddenly gone,” School Superintendent Richard Hughes and High School Principal Dan Henner wrote on the Otselic Valley Central School District’s Facebook page. “So much history has just disappeared.”
The Cox Block building was built in 1890, an historic fixture in town. Currently the building housed a general store, a sheriff’s office and eight apartment buildings. Around 1pm on Sunday afternoon, a grease fire started while a woman was cooking in one of the back apartments. She was able to call 911 and get everyone out of the building.
There were many obstacles when it came to fighting the fire. “One of them being the overhead wires,” said (Chenango County Fire Coordinator Matthew) Beckwith. “If you see there’s a lot of power that runs to the rest of the community that runs past the house.”
Another obstacle was water. The fire hydrants nearby were quickly run dry. Crews from eight different departments worked to gather water from nearby sources including the fish hatchery and the Otselic River.
The general store was also a refueling station. Propane tanks were all over the front porch of the store. Fire crews worked to keep them cool until it was safe to remove them from the porch before there was any danger of them exploding.
