Fire Leads to Emergency Demolition on 16th Street in East Wheeling
Shelley Hanson Trending
WHEELING -- The Wheeling Fire Department is investigating the cause of a blaze at a 16th Street property that had to be torn down on Thursday.
Wheeling Fire Department Chief Jim Blazier said firefighters were dispatched to the fire at 148 16th St. at about 5 a.m. Thursday.
The rear of the building was fully engulfed and fire was shooting from the roof of the two-story building when they arrived. Another smaller empty building next door also caught fire at 146 16th St.
Though the building was vacant, Blazier said fire investigators and workers with Edgco Inc. would have to be careful to check and see if anyone was inside the building during the razing.
"The building was unoccupied, but our fear is that you never know if someone was in there," he said.
By Thursday afternoon, no one had been found inside, said Wheeling Fire Department spokesman Philip Stahl. Blazier noted the condition of the structure made it impossible to fight the fire from the inside. The blaze had to be fought from the exterior.
He said it was a joint decision between the department's bureau of fire protection and the city's codes enforcement to do an emergency raze on the building.
"We felt the hazard of it falling on the neighboring building, and the neighborhood with people walking around, it's definitely structurally to the point where it had to come down," he said.
Blazier said the work likely would take the remainder of the day to do.
An Enterprise car rental business is right next to the building, but was not damaged. A portion of 16th Street was closed during the operation. The nearby Wheeling Salvation Army decided to close its thrift shop temporarily Thursday because of the street closure.
Just hours before, Wheeling firefighters fought another blaze at a trailer in the 4500 block of Wetzel Street, South Wheeling. The fire, which occurred at about 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, was extinguished quickly; no one was injured.
The trailer fire also remains under investigation.