What caused the fire has not been determined.
With hot spots still smoldering, local business owners and city officials are beginning to plan for the future in the wake of the fire that ravaged a main uptown street.
The blaze injured four students, five firefighters and three police officers, but none seriously, city officials said. More than 60 firefighters from six departments around Athens County battled the blaze that began early Sunday morning.
John Paszke, Athens’ code director, said the fire started in Kismet, a clothing boutique that suffered a roof collapse, which was the center of the fire. The fire originated in the back of the building near the alley that runs parallel to Chipotle at 41 S. Court St., Paszke said.
Investigators may never know what caused the fire, he said.
Hot spots continued to flare up into Monday afternoon underneath the floors that collapsed in some of the buildings along Union Street, said Athens Fire Chief Robert Rymer.
“With any fire, they’re difficult to get to,” Rymer said of the hot spots. Firefighters still had not entered at least a few of the buildings by 3:30 p.m.
Rymer and other city officials met with the affected business owners early Monday afternoon to assess the situation and initiate a recovery effort.
There are no damage estimates or timelines for when the state fire marshal’s office, which is investigating the fire, will be able to determine whether any of the buildings are still structurally sound, Rymer said, adding that there is still no lead on what caused the fire.
The Union Bar & Grill, a real estate office that was formerly Campus Sundry, Smoke Zone Smoke Shop, Jackie O’s Pub and Brewery and Uptown Dog all were labeled as having extensive fire damage, according to an assessment of the outside of the buildings done by the Athens County Auditor Jill Thompson’s office.
Information from her office showed all of the buildings were built prior to 1900, though exact dates were unknown.
Despite the destruction, Thompson said property owners still have a chance to get government aid.
Thompson said “building owners have to file a destroyed building notice to get a tax break for this year.”
Ohio University spent Monday helping the 40 students displaced by the fire, including putting some of them up in hotel rooms and working with their professors to get them excused from classes. At least $7,000 has been used from money donated to the university prior to the fire to purchase Wal-Mart gift cards, meal plans and initial supplies for affected students, said Stephanie Filson, an OU spokeswoman.
She did not have an estimate on how much money OU has raised since Sunday for students affected by the fire.
A few of the buildings, including 12, 14, 16 and most of 18 W. Union St., home to The Union, are being pegged as “total losses,” said Ron Lucas, deputy service-safety director for the city of Athens.
“As far as structural integrity, we don’t know yet,” Lucas said.
“It sounds like the desire of business owners is to keep the facades,” he added.
“I’m very optimistic about it,” Paszke said of saving the brick facades.
But any shifting of walls and floors could lead to a building collapse, and he said it’s too soon to know if any of the buildings will have to be torn down.
Records from Paszke’s office show city code officers had inspected all six apartments in the affected buildings since the beginning of 2013. Two apartments at 24 ½ W. Union St. hadn’t been inspected since February 2013, but the others were all inspected in the past five months.
All of the buildings were up to code, Paszke said.
“When you lose four of five buildings in a fire and 40 people live above it and you don’t lose anybody … count your blessings,” he said.
— Allan Smith, Alex Meyer, Maria DeVito, Emma Ockerman and Emily Bohatch contributed to this report.
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