Downtown Ironwood fire among top local stories of 2018

Editor's note: The Daily Globe is counting down the Gogebic Range's top five stories of 2018 each day through Monday, New Year's Eve. The editorial department staff sat down and came up with its annual list, naming a fatal fire in the early morning hours of Feb. 20 in downtown Ironwood as the second-place story of the year.

Feb. 21, 2018. City Commissioner Jim Mildren later said it was the day he "thought we might lose our downtown," as a fire left three dead and two buildings destroyed.

The Ironwood Public Safety Department responded to reports of the Aurora Street fire at 3:49 a.m. that morning, battling the blaze with the help of the Hurley Fire Department for most of the day.

Mark Arnold Verrette, 57; Patrick James Somerville, 51, and Levi Dean Watkins, 27, all of Ironwood, died in the fire. All three died from smoke inhalation, IPSD Fire Marshal Brandon Snyder said Friday.

Three others were rescued via windows from the building's second and third floors and taken to Aspirus Ironwood Hospital.

The fire also destroyed 102 E. Aurora St., the former home of Chelsi's Corner boutique and a number of apartments on the upper floors, as well as the adjacent storefront to the east before it could be contained.

While asbestos mitigation temporarily delayed cleanup of the site, Aurora Street reopened to traffic March 10. In the following months, the remains of the structure were torn down and removed, leaving a vacant space in the downtown by mid-May.

As there is yet to be an official cause of the fire, the case remains open.

"We're not forgetting about it. It remains open, it remains an active case," Snyder said.

He said investigators were able to determine the fire began in a second floor apartment at 102 E. Aurora, but the building collapse and water needed to extinguish the flames hampered efforts to determine the cause.

"We basically have it narrowed down to a room, but in that room we don't know what it was," Snyder said.

The probe remains open in case new evidence emerges or advances in the science of fire investigation allows investigators to determine the cause from the existing evidence.

"The scene was very highly documented, so that if (new evidence is discovered or fire science evolves) in the future, we may be able to make a call on the fire," Snyder said.

He did make clear no evidence of a meth lab was found at the scene.

While the lack of answers may not be satisfying, Snyder defended the thoroughness of the investigation.

"This investigation was done, not only by us, but the Michigan State Police and the ATF," Snyder said. "Some of the best in the country came in to help us with this fire and we still were not able to come up with a cause."

One thing Snyder said all investigators were adamant about was the fire wasn't related to an earlier blaze in the building.

The initial blaze was reported at 2:34 a.m., a little over an hour before the fire that destroyed the building and killed the three people, Snyder said in March.

Snyder said Friday he was certain there wasn't a relation because of how a fire spreads.

The initial fire started on the third floor, while the second fire was on the second. Fires don't burn downwards, according to Snyder, meaning the fire did not travel down to the second floor.

"Just the mere relationship of the two fires, there's no damage path that would allow them to be connected," he said, adding the area the first fire was in was relatively undamaged by the subsequent fire.

While Snyder was"'quite confident" of that determination the day of the fire, he said he wanted to have the outside investigators confirm his findings.

"I wanted to be right," he said.

Snyder said the tragic reality is that there is sometimes nothing that can be done to save people in some fires.

"I don't necessarily remember the names of the people we saved, but I remember the names of the people we lost," he said, adding he didn't think there was anything that could have been done to prevent the outcome. "That's the (bad) part about this job."

Snyder said the fire demonstrates the importance of fire safety.

He asks the public at-large to not only ensure they have working smoke alarms, but also to practice home fire evacuation plans with their families to try and prevent future tragedies.