"Surber said the company had been speculating about plans to turn the site into low-income housing."
Journal Star (Peoria, IL) August 7, 1997 1997 STATE ALL A8 JESSICA DAYTON;LISA CLOAT FACTORY HISSES INTO HISTORY<CANTON OFFICIALS THANKFUL FIREFIGHTERS SAVED REST OF CITY CANTON -- A wrecking ball will demolish much of Canton's history today as firefighters extinguish lingering hot spots and collapse the remaining walls of the fire-ravaged former International Harvester Co. plant.
The fire had been reported about 4 a.m. Wednesday, and firefighters arrived to find the main six-story warehouse building at the far south end of the 33-acre complex engulfed in flames.
No firefighters or bystanders were injured in the blaze, but one woman was killed in an evacuation accident. Betty Carley, 69, died after being struck by a van during an evacuation of the nearby Sunset Manor nursing home.
Officials said the fire spread rapidly as flames shot more than 180 feet into the air during the early hours of the blaze. Many people reported they were able to see an orange glow from the fire as far away as Peoria, a distance of 30 miles.
In Canton, however, it was much more spectacular.
"It was bright, the sky was lit up and the sparks looked like shooting stars in the air," Canton Mayor Don Edwards said of the early stages of the fire.
At times during the blaze, thick puffs of green, yellow and black smoke shot into the air. Loud crashing resounded through the town as walls and floors fell to the ground and flames exploded through rooftops of the massive old factory. Ash covered streets and rooftops.
A blockwide evacuation perimeter was blocked off around the plant and, as winds shifted, perimeters were extended as far as four blocks in some directions.
Throughout the day, rumors flooded the city about the cause of the fire.
"This was a fast mover," said Canton Fire Chief Michael Jackson said. "It may have been an accident, I don't know.
"Fast-moving fires make you ask questions," he said.
Jackson said there was no electrical power in the main warehouse building, where the fire started.
More curious, Jackson said, he had received a call of heavy smoke coming from the former IH building at about 2:15 a.m.
Wednesday. When he arrived at the scene, there was a fire in a neighboring yard.
"I thought it could have been a diversion tactic," Jackson said. So he patrolled the plant for about an hour but found no sign of smoke or fire.
Jackson said he doesn't think the two incidents are related, but he found it suspicious that less than two hours later the empty warehouse building without electricity was engulfed in a raging fire.
"Yeah, this is definitely suspicious," agreed Canton police Detective Kent McDowell.
Canton Police Chief Mike Elam told the Journal Star that witnesses reported seeing several children near the plant about 4 a.m. He declined to say how old the children appeared, but he said police were trying to track down and interview them.
Elam later said police saw several people near the area when the fire was discovered but that they were not looking for anyone and no one had been questioned. Environmental concerns Fire Chief Jackson called in the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency's emergency-response unit after hearing reports that the plant contained several drums of "nonhazardous paint waste," said IEPA spokesman Jeff Sutton.
However, he said, IEPA investigators determined that paint or any other chemicals left in the building would have been rendered inert and harmless by the intense heat, which reached 2,000 degrees.
"Whatever was in there, the (inert) molecules are floating toward St. Louis, I'd guess," Sutton said. "It was hotter than any incinerator."
The blistering blaze left IEPA investigators with no worries about environmental concerns, he said. But that would not have been the case if the state had not removed 600,000 tires once housed in the plant, he said. The oil from tires makes tire fires burn at a much lower temperature; thus, tires do not incinerate but burn slowly over long periods of time. A fire involving 600,000 tires likely would have forced the evacuation of the entire city of Canton, along with much of the surrounding area, Sutton said.
"If that (plant) was still full of tires, it would've been burning until Christmas," he said.
Police Detective McDowell said, however, the IEPA did express concern about unknown carcinogens in the smoke. That concern led to the scrapping of an earlier decision to implode part of the plant's administration building to prevent the fire from spreading beyond Second Avenue.
In the end, firefighters were able to contain the blaze at a fire wall about halfway through the building -- half a block from the city's main business district. Fighting the inevitable fire "The people in this town have known for 10 years that they had a major fire hazard in this empty building here," Smithfield resident and former IH employee Robert Ford said as he watched the blaze spread down Elm Street. "Realistically, they knew it could happen."
And for that reason, Mayor Edwards said, city firefighters had "fought this fire on paper" many times.
"This has been a `what if? ' thing for the city for quite a while," Edwards said. "The effort, not only from the city but the EPA, to get the tires out of there was well worthwhile."
Chief Jackson said his firefighters had been in the plant many times examining every inch and every fire escape, in preparation for such a disaster.
From the beginning, Jackson said, firefighters had to take a defensive stand against the blaze. The fire moved quickly and, because of the way the plant was laid out, firefighters were unable to reach parts of the blaze that continued burning Wednesday night.
"This is going to be a two-day fire," several officials said.
Two critical stops, however, kept the blaze from leaping into parts of the residential and business districts of the city, according to Jackson. A concentrated effort at Elm Street and Fourth Avenue kept the blaze from reaching the historic First Baptist Church. Exploding bricks Cuba volunteer firefighter Jim Kirkpatrick was in front of the First Baptist Church when bricks from the building directly across the street exploded onto Elm Street, just missing firefighters.
"Bricks were going past us as we were running," he said. "That was pretty dramatic."
Jackson said the flying bricks were the result of a backdraft that occurred as fire swept through the building and toward the church. At one point, Kirkpatrick said the church could have gone up in flames at any moment.
"You couldn't put your hand out, it was steaming," he said.
Jackson agreed the church was under threat of being engulfed.
"The convection heat alone could have started that church on fire," he said. "Then we had kind of a backdraft explosion and part of the wall flew out."
Bricks from the wall of the building landed just inches from the steps of the circa-1853 church.
The second stop occurred at Elm and Second Avenue, Jackson said. Stopping the fire at Second was a must, because directly across the street is the town's electrical power station, a local tavern and a water tower.
"They've got to stop it here," Mayor Edwards said as the fire blazed down Elm toward Second.
A brick fire wall located in the burning administration building, however, slowed the progression of the fire enough for firefighters to contain the blaze about a half-block before the Second Street intersection.
"We got lucky here," Jackson said. "There was very little wind. It'd been a totally different story with just a 10 mph wind. " Businesses forced to close Usually by 10 a.m., Bill Carruthers is mixing drinks and pulling beers at his bar, Billy's Tap at the corner of Second and Elm streets. But Wednesday was an entirely different story for the bar owner.
He got the phone call about 4:30 a.m. that the former International Harvester plant located just across the street from his bar was up in flames.
"When I got here, the south end was on fire, but it didn't take long" for the fire to rip through the rest of the old plant, he said.
His business was forced to close when electric service to his block was shut off. Dozens of other businesses also were forced to close as part of the evacuation one block in each direction from the plant.
Even more business were ordered closed later in the afternoon when officials were deciding whether to implode the office complex of the former plant.
By noon, the threat that the fire in the office building would jump Second Street did not go unnoticed by Carruthers.
"I was scared to death," he said.
Carruthers worked at IH for about four years before quitting to take over the bar, which has been in his family for 55 years.
"I hated to see (the plant) close back then," he said. "But it can burn to the ground now."
Rick Lingenfelter, manager of Western Auto on Chestnut Street, lives with his wife, Anita, above the store just one block from the former farm implement plant. He didn't know the complex was on fire until about 6 a.m., when the couple turned on the television and saw the 100-foot flames on a news report.
Then he looked out the window and saw the soot and embers littering the parking lot behind his store.
But despite the closings of dozens of other businesses, Lingenfelter opened his store and stayed open until shortly after noon.
The closure hurt his store a little. "We're usually pretty steady," he said. "The phone isn't even ringing."
The Canton Floral Shop on Second Street, just one-half block from the office building of the former plant, wasn't taking chances. Early Wednesday morning, several vans were loaded with the entire contents of the store. A million gallons of water By 5:15 p.m. Wednesday, at least 1 million gallons of water had been used to fight the fire.
Canton Water Department Superintendent Steve White said his facility had pumped 1.5 million gallons from 7 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. -- nearly as much as Canton, the Illinois River Correction Center and the towns of Norris, Cuba and St. David/Dunfermline use in an 18-hour period.
On Wednesday, the prison and three outlying towns were relying on their own water towers and not the Canton pumping station for their water supply, White said.
In addition to the 1.5 million gallons pumped through the station, an additional 438,000 gallons of water was pulled from the city's water tower, he said. At least eight hydrants on the city's water network were being used in the area of the plant. Officials comment The blaze that consumed most of the 33-acre industrial plant -- and threatened the existence of local businesses and residences in the 13,700 population community -- is under investigation by the Canton Police Department, Canton Fire Department, Fulton County Sheriff's Department, State Fire Marshal's Office, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, and the IEPA. Richard Surber, president of Thistle Holding of Salt Lake City, which owns the remaining rubble of the plant, said Wednesday the company estimates about $90,000 of its equipment was stored in the warehouse buildings.
However, neither the building nor the equipment was insured.
Surber said the company had been speculating about plans to turn the site into low-income housing.
CyberAmerica Corp., formerly Canton Industrial Corp., owns Thistle Holding. Reporter Phil Luciano also contributed to this story @ART CAPTION:Flames erupt from the center of the Canton Industrial Corp. complex Wednesday. Firefighters from communities in Fulton and surrounding counties responded to the blaze, which started about 4 a.m. in the southern area of the complex and spread through the day to the rest of the facility. |
