By Brian M. Boyce
TERRE HAUTE — At 8:30 p.m., aerial units were still shooting water from three sides straight into the smoking hole where a roof had been 31⁄2 hours earlier.
“Unbelievable,” Terre Haute City Attorney Chou-il Lee said, watching in disbelief as flames left nothing but a shell of bricks where Modesitt Law Offices used to stand.
An alert citing smoke from the building at 321 Ohio St. came across emergency scanners about 5:12 p.m. Tuesday. A power box atop a utility pole on the building’s northwest side crackled and sparked like an oversized firecracker, and within minutes the block of Ohio Street between Third and Fourth streets was invisible due to billowing black smoke with its accompanying stench.
Terre Haute city fire trucks arrived at the scene as firefighters leaped off, unrolling hoses across the street and attaching them to hydrants as emergency responders and police stopped traffic from both ends of the block.
Hoses launched water into the building’s front along Ohio Street as firefighters threw ladders against the wall, breaking through second-floor windows to run more hoses into the building whose occupants had been evacuated just minutes before.
By 5:25 p.m., flames were bubbling between the west wall and roofline as firefighters hauled circular saws up onto the smoking roof, cutting large, square holes through the shingles.
Crowds surrounded the block, from the Ohio Street parking lot of Long John Silver’s to McDonald’s on the Walnut Street side, up and down Fourth Street, running fingers across cellphone cameras as local attorneys and businessmen passed kids in T-shirts staring at the blaze.
But by 6 p.m., deep, red flames were bursting through holes in the roof, climbing up as high as 20 feet, and three of the fire department’s aerial units were shooting water straight down onto the roof while five engines blasted water from all sides.
Brad Chaney, branch manager of Regions Bank at Third and Ohio streets, right next to the burning building, watched as firefighters doused the bank with water as flames from Modesitt’s office threateningly licked the exterior.
Chaney said he intends to open the bank this morning, but that will depend on whether utilities are available. Workers from Vectren and Duke Energy surrounded the building, monitoring the lines they had shut off early in the fight.
At 8:30 p.m., the fire department was still pouring water into the building from all sides, but no flames were visible.
The building housed Vigo County Prosecutor Terry Modesitt’s private law practice, Allied Abstract and Title Co., Conley Real Estate Appraisals and the offices of attorney Eric Frey. As night fell, all that was left were piles of brick.
Jeff Fisher, chief of the Terre Haute Fire Department, was drenched to his white T-shirt as he backed away from the smoke about 8 p.m. According to Fisher, all city units had been on the scene at various points, with five engines, three aerial units and dozens of backup vehicles. They were assisted by city and Indiana State University police.
“We’ve had roofers working up there all day,” Modesitt said of the building, which had smoke alarms but no sprinkler system. Both he and his partner, Lee, said they had no idea what started the fire.
No injuries were reported as all occupants of the building managed to get out. By 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, scanner traffic reported the firefighters were still at the scene, pouring on more water.
Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com
