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Show Early Morning Fire Takes Historic Landmark The streets were quiet Saturday except for the sound of rushing water slapping the sides of the Blue Church Lodge. It was five o'clock in the morning, only the firefighters, lodge guests and a few neighbors braved the bitter jold to watch a fire that destroyed the historical landmark and that has since baffled witnesses wit-nesses and investigators alike. The fire burned for over sixteen hours as firemen dumped gallons of water on the building. It started with tremendous smoke, smoke that soon made visibility inside the lodge impossible. Flames were spotted soon after inside the building but for hours the only flames visible on the outside of the building were those shooting through the steeple eaves. It was about 6:00 a.m. when a Utah Power and Light employee climbed the power pole within a few feet of. those steeple flames to cut the power lines. It was a tragedy that seemed to unfold in slow motion during the early morning hours with few people to witness it. Witnesses did exist, however, how-ever, sixteen of them had been staying inside the lodge when the fire broke out. Guest Ron James was one of them and he's been credited with saving the lives of the others. and the neighbors and friends who came to help but "I can't thank the (fire) system-it doesn't work. Those firemen did their best but we shouldn't put them through that anymore." The morning of the fire, fire marshall Herb Johnson said there was a delay in responding to the fire of between 25 and 45 minutes. He attributed that delay to people in the lodge attempting attempt-ing to fight the fire themselves them-selves before calling the fire department. however, Schmidt explained the firemen fire-men were already on the street-at the time he and Georgelas used the only fire extinguisher used by any of them on the fire. Johnson's statement upset James and Tom Georgelas who were quick to explain that the fire department was called before all of the people in the lodge were evacuated. Park City .Police Detective Lloyd Evans told the Record the first dispatch call on the fire was logged in at 2:07 a.m. Johnson said the dispatch he received said "there was a fire contained in a boiler room-I almost went home." Despite the fact that Johnson John-son and other fire officials didn't go home the building was listed a total loss by 5:00 a.m. It was the second historical landmark destroyed destroy-ed by the fire in Park City within the last six months. Roy Reynolds was the architect who worked on remodeling the lodge for current owner Robert Lewis. He said the building had been stripped down to its original timber and floor I . . ., - . ' . ' i .v . . ' - - - -' ';. . V-' James said he was watching television in his room when he suddenly smelled smoke. "There was something unusual unu-sual about it" said James who went downstairs to check on it. He said he opened the door to the basement and saw smoke filling the room "so I closed the door and went upstairs to wake everyone. I woke everyone on the first floor and then went upstairs and called the fire department." James said this happened at about 1:30 or 1:45 a.m. He told the Record he had trouble getting the operator to understand he had an emergency and he said "she didn't know where the lodge was--I finally told her it was next to the Park City police department." He then woke the rest of the guests in the lodge. James and guest Ted Georgelas then went back to the basement to see what they could do with the fire "but there was so much smoke there was nothing we could do" said Georgelas "we closed the door and made a run for it. I ran out in my bare feetalmost without any clothes on." It was about this time that a woman, "cool, calm and collected" according to fire marshall Herb Johnson, joists for the remodeling. They had added new floor joists, fire code gypsum board and new wiring throughout the building. They included smoke detectors detect-ors but not sprinklers. In fact, sprinklers are one of the two issues that Reynolds said were obvious from Saturday's fire. "The business of requiring sprinkler sprink-ler systems is no longer a luxury in our city. The city is going to have to insist that all buildings of this (lodge) size in the same proximity to other buildings have sprinklers. sprink-lers. Everybody's going to have to voluntarily put them in," said Reynolds. Johnson agrees but he is apparently not willing to wait for "volunteers." He said the fire department plans to push for "retroactive" sprinkler requirements especially espe-cially for the older "landmark" "land-mark" buildings. "If we don't get some sprinklers in these historic landmarks there're aren't going to be any of them left to look at," said Johnson. Reynolds also said the time ' walked down the steps between the lodge and the Memorial Building into the police department. She told officer Leon Witt the lodge was on fire. Witt reported to the scene where he began evacuating lodge residents. It was the sound of the police siren and people talking that awoke Roger and Nancy Schmidt. Nancy manages the Blue Church Lodge while Roger handles the maintenance work and admittedly "knows the church inside and out. Roger saw smoke coming out of the church. He said he grabbed his fire extinguisher and ran to the building. He heard someone say to him, "we're all out - check the trashroom in the basement." Schmidt told the Record he found lots of smoke but no flames in the basement so he went down to the sub-basement where he found flames in several spots but he couldn't get the extinguisher to work. Schmidt ran out to meet Ted Georgelas who grabbed the extinguisher out of his hand, popped the pin and used it up within "seconds" according to Schmidt. It was about this time the first fire truck arrived said Schmidt estimating the time at about 2:20 a.m. It was about 2:30 a.m. when the fireman who had been using a hose on the fire put down the hose and walked out of the building telling Schmidt "it's okay we got itno problem." It's not clear whether the fireman actually thought the fire was out or whether he was overcome by smoke but both James and Schmidt claim these were the critical moments that decided decid-ed the building's fate. Schmidt could still see flames but the fireman told him it was a hot spot and there was another team coming in behind him. Schmidt admitted he was upset about the fire. "I was so upset and obnoxious I could understand why they wanted to arrest me but no one would listen to me," said Schmidt who was warned by police to stay away. "1 kept telling them it way my church but nobody asked me who I was or why I was so upset. I knew where the fire was and I was trying to tell them. It was then a police officer repeated his threat to arrest me three times." Schmidt said that at 2:30 a.m., "they had me convinced the building was saved." He says it's this fact more than anything that has left him bitter about the entire incident. "I still believe we could have put the fire out at 2:30 a.m. within five minutes regardless regard-less of when the fire department was called or when they showed up and that's not just the opinion of the lodge manager's husband hus-band but it's the opinion expressed to me by the tirst fireman on the scene," said Schmidt. Bewildered and bitter are the words Schmidt uses to describe his feelings about the fire. He said he could , easily thank each one of the . firefighters for .their efforts has come for a full-time professional firefighting staff. "We have the highest impact fees in Utah for developers," he said, "there's no reason for this complex town not to have a full-time paid fire department. depart-ment. The firefighters who fought the lodge blaze were brave, they never quit. They did the best job a volunteer department could do but it wasn't as good as a professional department could have done." Losing the Blue Church Lodge was like "losing one of my family" according to Reynolds. "It's the project that brought me to Utah and changed my whole life. The lodge was the first real effort toward restoring a relic in town and it got a lot of community support--! think v 1 : K - ' N t -, , . ' f .- . . J ..- -. - v . . " Y, v. ' t S- :. - . I . h. -; ' . . t;: . . - , ; . : v .- i . - . - -y . . '-- - . . -; o- t--.--t " ' - f ; S -- 5 t :i I - : J. ' i I f - . : t - .i r, . .... , - ; Y-. . - . i .... ;. ;- ' . - . - .- J V . . 0 r-d . "V "-y . V'-';-:;f;.-- . ; . I I exactly how the water seeped into the restaurant. At least six inches of water flooded the entire bottom floor of the Memorial Building. Build-ing. Damage has not been estimated. Several other buildings located near the lodge also suffered water damage. The fire burned all day Saturday. The aerial truck left the scene Saturday morning only to be called back with the fast attack truck at about 2:00 p.m. when Katie LaPae reported her home was on fire. One of the lodge's exterior walls had fallen against LaPae's house causing it to smolder. Firefighters were able to prevent further damage to the home. But LaPae was clearly unhappy they had left the scene in the first place. Saturday's fire marked the first one residents could remember where hotel guests were involved. Those evacuated into the cold were taken to the Schmidt home where ChamberBureau Director Dir-ector Debby Symonds helped locate clothing and lodging for them. They were then taken to the Holiday Inn where most of them stayed through Monday. Mon-day. They were disappointed disappoin-ted at losing their belongings including ski and camera equipment but they were optimistic. Many felt fortunate fortu-nate to be alive. Ted Georgelas put it simply when he told the Record, "I've read of people becoming overcome with smoke and never waking up--now I understand what that means. We could have been killed." we all lost," he said. Luckily, the building and its contents were the only things lost. There were no lives lost and there were no serious injuries to firefighters. Several were treated for smoke inhalation with one fireman receiving rib injuries when he was thrown against the building by a loose fire hose. Firefighters called the fire one of the most dangerous fires to fight because of its lack of fire blocks and the fact that it was really a "building within a building," build-ing," according to Johnson. Reynolds disputes that fact, however, saying that he himself put in some of the fire blocks. "I don't say we didn't miss a spot but we put them in," he said. Johnson also said one of the north side windows was blocked stopping adequate ventilation. Reynolds admitted admit-ted the window was blocked noting "that was the only place where a blind space existed at a window it was simply a space we could find no use for but calling it a building within a building is not an accurate description. Firefighters were hampered by a heavy smoke and below freezing temperatures that caused water to freeze on equipment, streets and sidewalks. side-walks. The water froze like giant ice cubes on large sections of Park Avenue and Main Street which remained partially closed throughout the day. Water seeped into the Memorial Building and into the Express Company restaurant. rest-aurant. City Recreation Department spokesperson Anne Bowman said the water broke one of the windows in the downstairs recreation room sending water into the room "like a waterfall." Bowman and her crew spent Sunday and Monday cleaning clean-ing up mud, salamanders and worms from the room. Authorities still don't know ' |
