General News: Fire Destroys Clearwaters Frame Gallery
Firefighters from Highland Engine Company knocked out windows in Clearwaters Frame Gallery. Photo by Vernon Perrone.
Photo by Vernon Perrone.
David Clearwater speaks with firefighters as debris is removed from the building.
March 15, 2011
A fire Tuesday morning destroyed Clearwaters Frame Shop and Art Gallery, part of the Jones Farm shops on Angola Road in Cornwall.
David Clearwater, who owns the frame store, stood outside the wood frame building at 8 am watching the firefighters pull out charred pieces of the gallery. He said he had no idea how the fire had started just a half hour earlier but that it appeared to have begun near the furnace.
Vernon Perrone, a neighbor, saw the smoke billowing across Angola Road around 7:30 am. He says he pulled into the driveway of Jones Farm just as David Clearwater was coming out to see what was going on. Perrone says that he called 911 then he and Clearwater grabbed fire extinguishers and tried to put out the fire. They emptied six fire extinguishers but the fire still burned. No one was inside the gallery when the fire started and there were no injuries.
Cornwall fire department chief Patrick Hines said that several area fire departments responded to the fire. They began breaking windows to allow the smoke to escape and Hines said the fire was knocked down in about ten minutes though smoke continued to billow from the structure.
Hines noted that when he got the call he had two initial concerns: protecting the Jones Farm barn that stands just 30 feet away from the frame shop and the absence of fire hydrants in an area that gets its water from wells. Hines said there was no damage to the barn, home to Grandma Phoebe’s Bakery and Country Store. To ensure a reliable water supply, he called in five tanker trucks to pump water to the site of the blaze.
By 8:30 am, the Orange County fire inspector was on the scene. Hines said an investigation would be conducted to determine the cause of the fire.
