Fire Crews Continue Work Downtown
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Fire crews were still on the scene Saturday, after a historic piece of downtown Jackson went up in flames Friday late morning. Fire Fighters were taking on what they call “hot spots”, small areas where fires were likely to start or create smoke, at the downtown historic building, that was about to be renovated. Officials said the amount of debris and depth of the building was still smoldering and smoking, more than a day later. Thousands of gallons of water had been poured on the former First Baptist Church, trying to rid the building of anymore danger, but according to officials, that was no longer the main concern. Battalion Chief Mark Ferguson said as crews continued to put out smoke in the basement of the church, there were also tearing down walls along the way, eliminating a possible collapse. “We’ll probably be on and off all during the day, because of the debris being in the basement and everything is covered up. It’s going to take a lot of water to soak it down and contain it,” said Chief Ferguson. Fire investigators said they were still determining exactly what caused the fire, but it appeared hot work by roofing crews on the historic building may have sparked the fire. A blaze that also caused some internal damage to the Casey Building next door. According to owner, John Allen,”Right now we’re mainly concerned with getting the affected businesses around us back up and power on which we believe will be done today with the exception of the bus station. Then we’ll be fencing off the area waiting for adjusters to come in to where we can clean-up the sight.” Fire officials said most of the surrounding businesses including the Greyhound bus station should be up and running on Monday. Allen mentioned his guess would be the church will have to be demolished. Allen stated, “We did have some pretty grand plans for that. It’s unfortunate that’s probably not going to happen but something else will go there. I don’t know what, but it will be put into good use and benefit the folks downtown.”
