Fresh Loaf

A fire that ignited outside Atlanta’s Masquerade Music Park Saturday night has been extinguished, with no reported injuries. The fire did destroy a storage space separate from the music venue.

Around 10 p.m., three Atlanta Fire Department engines responded to the venue’s open-air music park.

Witnesses said they walked outside to find plumes of smoke billowing from the the rear of the venue. Another witness standing in a nearby parking lot said he saw smoke as well. He said he walked to the rear of the venue and found flames had already engulfed trees and were spreading to nearby booths.

Firefighters managed to contain the blaze to a fenced-in area that stored portable toilets. All of those toilets — an estimated 20 — appeared to be destroyed.

The main venue, which tonight was hosting a punk rock showcase, was not impacted.

Firefighters did not immediately know what caused the fire. The fire, witnesses said, appeared to have started in the portable toilet storage area.

CL attempted to take a photo of the damage but was told by firefighters we were not appropriately dressed to enter the scene. You know, because of the contents of the burnt portable toilets and the fact that we were in sandals. Tessa from Drive a Faster Car has Twitter pics of the blaze.

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Around 7 a.m. this morning, the Georgia Theatre caught fire. The landmark venue that showcased bands including REM, the B-52s, Widespread Panic and countless others — and which last year underwent a renovation — burned for several hours. Around 11 a.m. its interior and roof collapsed. The venue is now reportedly a shell of its former shelf.

From Fox 5:

A lot of Athens’ history just went up in smoke. The AJC’s Chip Towers has a thorough write-up of firefighters’ efforts to save the building. Owner Wilmot Greene tells Towers he wants to rebuild. Michelle Gilzanrat of Athens’ Flagpole Magazine has updates, on-the-ground video and photos of the blaze. The Athens Banner-Herald has strong coverage including details about the venues where AthFest acts have been moved. Travis Fain of the Macon Telegraph liveblogged the fire. The Red & Black student newspaper has lots of stories about the fire.

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The rumors are true, the Highland Inn did indeed suffer a two alarm fire last night (Thurs., Feb.), but reports that it burned to the ground are greatly exaggerated.

According to Valerie Culkin — who books music for the downstairs Ballroom Lounge — there was an electrical fire that broke out due to a short in a wall on the main floor. The fire started in a wall socket. The room was vacant and an electrician has since examined the socket in question and reportedly said that sometimes it just happens.

A walk around the perimeter of the building reveals that there are no signs of fire damage to the exterior. “I think the media made it out to be much worse than it really was,” said property manager Steve Harvey.

(more…)

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11 Alive reports:

The small Midtown Atlanta hotel, on North Highland Ave. near North Avenue also houses a restaurant, a ballroom and business offices.

Atlanta Fire Officials tell 11Alive News, second alarm units and crews were added as a precaution. The fire caused damage to four rooms and other rooms have smoke and water damage. Several residents required assistance from the Red Cross.

There were no injuries and the cause is under investigation.

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Late Saturday night, a Grant Park couple’s home burned for 25 minutes before firefighting crews arrived. Officials are probing why it took the City of Atlanta 911 call center so long to relay the message to fire crews. A computer malfunction has hindered the department’s ability to determine the exact time the 911 call was received.

Below is a video of the fire posted on YouTube by the couple’s neighbor.

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WELL-TO-DO: Former Loafer Alyssa Abkowitz writes in the WSJ how affluent Atlantans such as Tyler Perry and Tom Glavine are getting around watering restrictions by installing wells.

MATTER OF PRINCIPAL: Cobb County school board members say they hadn’t heard a middle school principal was under investigation for sexual harassment when they promoted him to principal of North Cobb High School last month.

TRIAL BY FIRE: Cherokee County firefighters are the latest in metro Atlanta to invest in thermal-imaging cameras that allow them to find hidden hot spots and victims through smoke.

CLAYTON: The school system hires 400 new teachers despite the looming accreditation crisis.

CHASE CLOSED: A North Carolina man leads police on a chase through several Atlanta and DeKalb County neighborhoods Wednesday morning, eventually being caught after trying to flee his car.

FIGHTING DOGFIGHTING: The Humane Society has been blitzing Georgia the last few months with ads promoting a $5,000 reward for information leading to dogfighting arrests and convictions.

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I sent an e-mail yesterday to Frank O’Donnell of Clean Air Watch, a D.C.-based environmental advocacy group, regarding the massive inferno that consumed a carpet warehouse in south Fulton and sent plumes of black death wafting for miles.

Turns out there are more than 120 chemicals in carpets, including dioxin, which is a nasty sonuvagun. Think this guy. So burning them is not a great idea. O’Donnell suggested I read this article, and I suggest you do the same.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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CL staff photographer Joeff Davis came to work this morning with photos of the carpet warehouse fire near Fulton Industrial Boulevard that covered much of downtown with smoke.

(All photos by Joeff Davis)

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The news out of Waycross a day or so ago was that the so-called Georgia Bay wildfire — the source of the morning haze and lovely campfire odor in Atlanta over the holiday weekend — was completely contained. What a relief that’s over, right? Well, not quite. First off, the news was slightly inaccurate. The fire was only 85 percent contained, as the Georgia Forestry Commission subsequently corrected. But, more importantly, contained is not the same as controlled.

Last Thursday, I visited the amusingly named Joint Information Center — a communications command post staffed by employees of various state agencies from Georgia and Florida — in downtown Waycross, where I received a crash course in Wildfire 101.

For starters, I discovered that no one down there is talking about actually putting the fires out. That’s because a very large portion of the fire is inside the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, which straddles the state line. Because fire is a natural part of a forest’s life cycle, the standard policy is to let wilderness areas burn. Also, it would be very difficult to get firefighting equipment into such a soggy, remote wilderness area. Therefore, the focus has been on keeping the fire contained inside the Okefenokee and battling it only when it intrudes onto private land. I was told several times by different experts that the only thing that could put the fires out is a significant rainfall. When that might happen is anyone’s guess.

And even then, the fire won’t go completely out, I was told. Because the soil inside the Okefenokee has a high organic content, similar to compost, the fire can continue to smolder and spread below ground, causing new outbreaks when it hits unburned areas.

(more…)

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