January 8, 2003

Neon light started fire

      Investigators have traced the origin of a fire that destroyed most of a Greenwood shopping center Monday: a neon light on the west side of the building. Business owners and employees were still picking up the pieces Tuesday at the Fairview  Place strip center on the east side of State Road 135 between Fry and Fairview Roads. White River Township Fire Department investigator Eric Brown said damage has been estimated at no less than $500,000. Design Lighting suffered a total loss, and two other businesses, Jacks Pizza and the Classy Lassie women’s consignment boutique, were gutted. The other four businesses in the center had varying degrees of water and smoke damage. The blaze began on the west side of the building outside Design Lighting, Brown said. Fire got into the attic then spread to other stores. Two Greenwood police officers who arrived at the scene just before firefighters did told Brown the flames were coming from the west side of the building. He began his investigation there. The charring and destruction indicated that’s were the blaze originated.  As firefighters looked for the cause, they noticed portions of the gutter from the overhang were completely burned away, Brown said. They then noticed that the “G” and “N” in Design from the Design Lightning neon sign had been destroyed, while the others remained intact. Brown said the owner told him that the sign had been serviced about two or three weeks ago. He contacted the service company, which said they had found problems in the fifth or sixth letter of the sign: the “G” or “N.” Brown determined that an electrical problem in one of those two lights started the fire, which then burned through the overhang and into an attic shared by all the business in the center. “It’s funny, neon’s the one kind of light we don’t sell,” said Design Lighting owner David Franzman. He surveyed the damage and was amazed at some of the items that survived. Piles of white lampshades, still wrapped in plastic, were soiled by soot but otherwise in good condition. Franzman pointed out a $3,500 chandelier that had no damage but a few broken bulbs.” I guess this is what they mean by a ‘fire sale,’” he said. Franzman and his employees had left the store when it closed about 5p.m. Monday. Brown said it’s a good thing no one was in the store when the fire broke out. Fire was contained in the attic for probably 15 to 20 minutes before firefighters arrived on the scene. Soon after they got there, the roof collapsed. “I walked around the west side of the building when I got here to turn off the gas and looked in through the windows,” Brown said. “The light were on, and it looked like they could have been open for business.  There wasn’t ever any smoke inside.  They could have been there and not even known about the fire until too late.”   The Jack’s Pizza restaurant next door to Design Lighting was the only business open when the fire started, and five employees were inside.  Owner Bill Haas said that a motorist driving by noticed the flames coming out of the roof of Design Lighting and ran inside to tell the Jack’s employees to call 911 and get out of the building.  They called Haas, who rushed to the scene. He said that when he arrived, it appeared the firewall between the lighting store and the pizza shop was going to prevent serious fire damage, but then the roof collapsed.  Jack’s and Classy Lassie were lost when the roof collapsed.  Carla Hightower, owner of the clothing store, was still in shock Tuesday morning after having watched her business of seven years burn the night before.  She said she arrived at her Trafalgar home just in time to get the call that the center was burning. She got back to the cent just in time to see the roof collapse, she said.  “I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do yet,” she said. “I'm still so much in shock, I’m still trying to comprehend that it is gone.”  The shopping center owner and manager, Jerry Martin, said the shock hasn’t worn off for him yet either.  He couldn’t talk as he watched the flames Monday evening, he said.  But by Tuesday morning, he was in business mode.  Martin said that if the insurance process allows, he will have the building torn down in the next couple of weeks and estimates he could be rebuilt and ready for business again in about three months.  Suffering smoke and water damage were Liberty Mutual Group and The Pella Window Store. Two other businesses – Reese Kitchens and the dental office of Douglas Harty and Sherri Wilson – suffered no damage but smelled of smoke.  All but Hightower confirmed they would be back when the strip mall was ready to reopen.  See a related story HERE.  (Reprinted with permission from the Daily Journal.)

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