Terrible Fire in Downtown Sylva, NC...Saturday, August 16, 2014 ...Kelly Timco Photos
This past Saturday morning started like most others. We had plans to go to downtown Sylva to enjoy the celebration of the NC Cooperative Extension's 100th birthday and to go by our local tailgate market. I put the pot of coffee on the stove and settled in to catch up on Facebook, ActiveRain, emails, etc. I never got past Facebook.
Sylva, NC is a very small town full of independently owned businesses. We all know each other. The downtown area is less than four blocks long. By 7:00 am, a fire was raging in a restaurant that was closed for renovations. On one side of the old Hooper building is Motion Makers, a 20 something year old high end bike shop and on the other side is a outdoor store.
The entire downtown area was cordoned off, the Farmer's Market and Extension Service celebration canceled, and firefighters from 8 companies were battling the fire. At one point it was reported that up to 5000 gallons per minute of water was being used to douse the fire.
By a very strange coincidence, the Fire Department of the Town of Sylva had orchestrated a day of training downtown to practice in the event there ever was a full blown fire in these two story very old buildings. To say they were prepared is putting it mildly. By late afternoon the fire was contained and three buildings housing several businesses were either destroyed or condemned.
We are extremely fortunate that none of these buildings housed apartments upstairs with humans or pets living in them. No lives were lost and as far as I know, no firefighters were injured. We might be small town but we have incredible emergency personnel.
My friend Kelly Timco took these photos of the fire taking place. The devastation is unbelievable and according to reports in the local paper, Jackson County had just hired an individual who's sole purpose will be to inspect our buildings in this county to make sure they do not pose an increased risk for fire or impediment to the firefighters. It appears that there was obstruction to the firefighters because debris was blocking some of the access to the areas that they needed to be able to enter the buildings.
It is very sad to think that these almost 100 year old buildings will be torn down but this could have been so much worse. Thank you Kelly for allowing me to post your photos.
Keep good thoughts for the Town of Sylva as they rebuild this major portion of our downtown area.
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