Fire destroys building at Lakeside and Fourth
Five businesses on the 200 block of North Fourth, along Lakeside Avenue were destroyed in an early morning fire Monday, and the nonprofit Emerge gallery was heavily smoke damaged. Investigators will begin their detective work today to learn the cause of the fire that began near the roof of the small, business complex a block north of Sherman Avenue. (Photo courtesy of COEUR d’ALENE FIRE DEPARTMENT)
Coeur d’Alene firefighters sort through the rubble of a massive fire at the corner of Lakeside Avenue and Fourth Street in downtown Coeur d’Alene early Monday morning. The blaze reportedly started shortly after 1 a.m. (MIKE PATRICK/Press)
By RALPH BARTHOLDT
Staff writer
A pall of smoke hung over downtown Coeur d’Alene Monday morning as crews mopped up the remnants of a fire from the charred bones of a brick building on the 200 block of North Fourth Street that was ravaged by flames and water.
There were no injuries in the blaze that was reported by a passerby around 1:30 a.m. and destroyed several businesses. Cole Taylor Salon, Schmidty’s Burgers, Heart City Tattoo, 720 Haberdashery and Farmer’s Insurance were irreparably damaged, fire officials said.
Denise Schmidt, owner of Schmidty’s Burgers, said she didn’t learn about the blaze that ravaged her business until she received a social media message from a friend. She drove downtown at 5:30 a.m. and found firefighters still knocking down hotspots in the building a block north of Sherman Avenue along Lakeside that she shared with the other commercial tenants.
“It was devastating,” Schmidt said. “It was just horrible.”
The roof had caved in and debris floated in the surrounding streets.
The fire started in the ceiling, likely above the Cole Taylor Salon at 200 N. Fourth St., and burned into the roof lines of surrounding businesses, Fire Chief Kenny Gabriel said.
The department used two ladder trucks to spray down at the flames under the roof without sending crews inside, Gabriel said.
“There are two things we don’t do,” Gabriel said. “Fight fires underneath us, or above us.”
Dangerous breakthroughs and cave-ins are common, he said.
Six businesses were affected, according to the department. Firefighters were able to safely move art from the Emerge gallery, which was only nominally affected by the flames because a firewall separated the nonprofit gallery from the adjoining businesses, fire inspector Craig Etherton said.
“That fire wall did its job,” Etherton said.
The three-alarm fire included two ladder trucks — from Coeur d’Alene and Kootenai County Fire and Rescue — as well as engines and crews from departments including Northern Lakes, and 30 firefighters, Gabriel said.
Once crews got to work, overhead nozzles blew out windows and chunks of burned rafters and roofing. Rivers of water streamed down Fourth Street and Lakeside Avenue, floating debris and furniture toward Sherman Avenue, witnesses said.
City crews cleared storm drains in the early hours to divert water and began scraping debris from the streets under a lead-colored sky. Glass, charred wood and ash were shoveled by machinery as commuters in the surrounding area were met with street closures.
Etherton said fire inspectors will begin their detective work today, looking for the fire’s cause. That will require climbing ladders inside the building to inspect the roof line where the fire likely began.
Two GoFundMe sites, one for the Emerge and another for the Heart City Tattoo, appeared Monday on social media. A local collective, Coeur d’Alene’s Innovation Den, invited the business owners to set up shop for free up the street.
“Our hearts go out to Emerge, Cole Taylor, Heart of the City Tattoo, Schmidty’s Burgers, Michael Score Farmers Insurance Agency, 720 Haberdashery, and anyone who frequented those businesses,” according to an email sent from the Innovation Collective/Innovation Den. “…They have free coworking, fiber internet, showers, conference rooms, and desks to use here at the Innovation Den.”
Aaron Cloyd, who set up the GoFundMe for the gallery, said he heard news of the fire early Monday and wanted to help. He was among volunteers to move things from the nonprofit Emerge space, including two kilns that were downstairs as contractors boarded the building and erected safety fences after fire operations were over.
“It was bad,” he said. “There was smoke in our clothes, smoke in our hair. We had to scrub everything.”
David L. Rucker, who owns the brick facility that housed the six businesses, remodeled the 7,500-square-foot structure at the northeast corner of Fourth and Lakeside 15 years ago after purchasing the property in 2003. Rucker, of San Diego and Coeur d’Alene, could not be reached for comment Monday.
The Emerge gallery will find a temporary space at Art Spirit Gallery along Sherman Avenue downtown, Cloyd said.
Schmidt said she and her husband may be down, but they’re not out.
“We do want to re-open,” she said. “We’ll try to find another location.”
In 2008, a three-alarm fire destroyed Sherman Avenue storefronts and several apartments. It damaged a Chinese restaurant in a nearly 100-year-old building on the 1200 block of East Sherman.
Eight years later in August 2016, a three-alarm fire broke out in the second story at the corner of Fourth Street and Sherman, in the same building as the Beacon Pub. That fire caused the evacuation of the Cellar restaurant and burned offices at Pita Pit headquarters a block from Monday’s blaze.