White Hall Fire Department Concludes Investigation Into Cause of Downtown Fire

By Benjamin Cox on February 2, 2017 at 11:14am

The White Hall fire department has completed their investigation in to the cause of the fire that destroyed 3 buildings downtown. White Hall Fire Chief Garry Sheppard says the official cause of the fire will be listed as undetermined.

“We are going to list it as undetermined but it was probably an electrical fire. I was able to interview the subject that occupied the area where the fire started. He told me that he had plugged in a couple of electric heaters. He said he heard a popping noise and about 5 minutes later he went to investigate, after smelling something hot. He left the apartment he had built inside the commercial building, walked to the back and it was all on fire. He attempted to put it out with a fire extinguisher but the fire had too much of a start. That is pretty much where we are at right now.”

Chief Sheppard explains why they aren’t listing the cause as an electrical.

“The building had so much devastation there is no way to investigate and see where it actually started. If we could find a point of origin then we could probably say yes it was electrical, but we are pretty much going to have to say undetermined.”

Chief Sheppard says they are starting the process of clean up now.

“Actually we have the street pretty well cleaned up and city workers have the side walk cleared. We still have a lot of hot spots that we are taking care of as needed. At this point we are just letting it do what it needs to do to calm down. The smoke is probably the worst thing and I would encourage the people of White Hall to try and deal with it for awhile and we will try to get rid of the smoke as soon as we can.”

Chief Sheppard says the smoke may take a couple of days to clear completely.