DE PERE, WI (WTAQ) – A historic De Pere building was turned into little more than rubble and ash following a devastating overnight fire on Wednesday.
The fire broke out around 12:30 at 100 South Broadway and started in Ogan Restaurant.
XO Fitness, which is located next door, was also destroyed in the fire.
The building that collapsed was more than 100 years old.
“It’s a very somber morning and it’s sad to see a piece of local history lost,” says De Pere Mayor, Mike Walsh. “This was a very old building with a lot of history attached to it, but unfortunately with those types of buildings, it doesn’t take long for them to go up during a fire.”
There are businesses on the first floor and apartments on the second floor.
Officials say more than twenty apartment residents have been displaced, but thankfully none of those individuals were injured.
The displaced residents are being assisted by both De Pere health officials and the Red Cross.
The Red Cross is also offering counseling and planning for long term living arrangements.
“It’s a shame, and I feel deeply for everyone affected by this loss – the owner of the building, the people who work there, who own a business there, who live there,” says Mayor Walsh.
One firefighter suffered a leg injury while fighting the flames.
The effort by crews to control the flames took a massive amount of manpower and water.
“We were drawing so much water that we were depleting the city’s water system and we were hitting all the hydrants in this downtown area,” explains Fire Chief Alan Matzke. “We were flowing thousands and thousands of gallons per minute.”
He says their overall strategy had to shift once the building engulfed in flames crumbled to the ground in a heap.
“At that point, it became a defensive operation in that building so we moved our resources into the building next door to try to make a defensive stand and stop the fire from burning down the block,” explains Chief Matzke.
The crews consider themselves fortunate that more serious injuries didn’t take place once the historic building fell to the ground.
“If they were operating where they were originally when the building collapsed we would have had several firefighters that would have been killed,” explains Assistant Fire Chief Eric Johnson.
Several small businesses in the building’s lower level were also destroyed, including a pilates studio run by Paula Kiley.
“Very sad, very sad…..but I’m glad no one was hurt,” she says.
Soon attention will turn to the cause of the fire, which at this point, remains a mystery.
The clouded nature of the fire’s origin may remain intact for the next couple of days too.
“When there’s this much damage to a building it’s dangerous for the investigators to be in a debris field and so it just takes that much longer,” says Johnson.
Additionally, an estimated total of damage isn’t available at this time.
