Brewery Pic… after Fire
July 5, 2007 – 7:19 am
Our Church and Brewery… Burning!!! Please Pray
July 5, 2007 – 4:25 am
2 #
Update: AL.com’s Marian Accardi interviewed Don Alan. Here’s the text from her story on AL.com:
Old Towne Brewing Co. owner and master brewer Don Alan Hankins said this morning he wants to rebuild the microbrewery that was destroyed by fire overnight.
Hankins didn’t know the extent of damage to the equipment in the building, including four large fermenters. About $5,000 worth of beer that was to be shipped today was in the walk-in cooler.
“I’d like to keep Old Towne Brewing Co. going, I just don’t know where,” he said.
The business at 214 Holmes Ave.. represents “a couple of million dollars” worth of investment, said Hankins, and “a lot of blood, sweat and tears.”
“I’m seeing all this” destruction, Hankins said, “and all I can think about is my cat.” His cat, Hops, lived at the brewing business and hadn’t been found as of this morning.
City building inspectors determined Thursday morning that the building is structurally unsafe, said James Tabor, the assistant fire marshal. The city’s Public Works was called on to bring in heavy equipment to remove the east wall of the building and any fallen beams, he said.
“The fire marshal’s office will conduct an investigation after it’s safe,” Tabor said. “This is going to be an all-day process, and we may be here into the night. We’re trying to save the front wall,” said Tabor.
Jimmy Ivey, district chief with Huntsville Fire & Rescue, said firefighters were battling the blaze inside the building for about 30 minutes when they noticed that the air-conditioning units were sagging. Firefighters were pulled from the building, and about five minutes later, the roof collapsed.
http://www.whnt.com/Global/story.asp?S=6748435
July 5, 2007
From our Huntsville Newsroom:
A high-profile Huntsville business burned this morning. Firefighters say the inside of the Olde Towne Brewing Company is a total loss.
Firefighters were called out to Olde Towne Brewing Company , at 214 Holmes Avenue, around 2:30 am Thursday. Flames were already shooting through the roof.
“About twenty minutes later we had the fire knocked down,” said Scott Pettitt with the Huntsville Fire Department. “To a certain extent it was still up in the ceiling areas and areas that were concealed and hard to get to.”
Causing major problems. The air conditioning units were sagging. That caused the roof to collapse.
“As you can see from the outside a large portion did collapse on the entry,” said Pettitt. “After that the problem was mopping up the hot spots. That’s usually the hardest and the most difficult.”
Then a real danger presented itself to the firefighters. Electricity was feeding from several different locations. Huntsville utilities had to come in and shut off the electricity.
“They finally got it isolated from the electricity so the guys aren’t going to get electrocuted, while they’re in there putting out the hotspots,” said Pettitt.
The inside of the building had quite a bit of wood in the structure, which caused the fire to worsen.
No firefighters were hurt. No employees were inside, either, but fear they may have lost their mascot, a cat named ‘Hops.’
Firefighters kept the flames from damaging surrounding businesses. They are at the scene today, sifting through the rubble and looking for the cause of the fire.