By Destiny Alvarado 

On October 5th, there was a large fire that damaged a few buildings on Main Street in Buckhannon. Huge clouds of smoke and debris were filling the air as the fire took its place through the three story building that holds the stores Sweet-a-Licious, Bacteria Busters, September Sun Hair Studio, and Foster’s Marketing Group. On the top of these businesses in the building are apartments.

Hunter Wilfong, a volunteer firefighter and a nursing student at Wesleyan, stated that there was a pedestrian that had run to the firehouse alerting them that there was a fire. After arriving at the scene, the Upshur County Fire department had managed to get the fire under control after calling other local fire departments from surrounding counties. He arrived later due to clinical, but stated that the fire department arrived very quickly on the scene since it was close to the department station.

Unfortunately, the damages that had happened to the buildings were already done. There was a lot of water and smoke damage to the buildings, but thankfully there were no serious injuries. The roof of the building also partially collapsed, but the rest of the foundation did not break. They were able to evacuate the buildings of the occupants living there and those in the stores underneath as well. Upshur county EMS was on scene assisting with rehabilitation to those who needed it.

According to Wilfong, the Fire Marshal ruled the fire was started from an electrical issue in the attic of the apartment building. Unfortunately, the businesses that used to reside in that building on the lower level have been put on hold for the time being, since they are not going to be able to get back into the building for quite some time. Thankfully, the fire department was able to stop the spreading fire and ensure safety to those who were involved. At the moment there is not much talk of how the building is going to be repaired, including the stores underneath it, but we are hoping that the city of Buckhannon is going to continue forward with remodeling and how to save our local stores that were damaged.

Photo used in My Buckhannon webpage.