BY ALEX PIAZZA
apiazza@record-eagle.com
GAYLORD — Kat Steinbrecher plans to watch the weather forecast with added interest during the next few days.
It's not because she scheduled a golf outing or is headed to the beach. A late-night fire Wednesday burned a gaping hole through the roof of her downtown Gaylord restaurant, so Steinbrecher is hoping for dry conditions until she finds a temporary solution.
"The roof is caved in," said Steinbrecher, owner of Mary's Tavern. "Our walls are starting to cave in. We don't have any power."
She soon hopes to reopen the business after the former Gaylord Lumber Company building caught fire around 9 p.m. Wednesday, then quickly spread to her popular downtown eatery. Steinbrecher, along with hundreds of other onlookers, gathered downtown to watch as flames devoured the former lumber company.
"It was intense," she said. "You could feel the heat from across the street. It was pretty warm."
The blaze also destroyed an apartment above Venus and Blue Jeans consignment shop, and melted the siding along Subway. No one was injured by the blaze that had the potential to torch an entire block along Main Street, said Otsego County Fire Chief Dave Duffield.
More than 100 firefighters helped control the fire within an hour, and they doused the blaze by midnight. The fire's cause has yet to be determined, but Duffield said vagrants occasionally broke into the former lumber company.
"Everybody's surprised by this," said Jigar Patel, owner of nearby Timberly Motel.
Patel offered a free motel room to residents of the destroyed apartment above the consignment shop. He couldn't see smoke from the motel, but said he saw several locals make their way downtown to watch the blaze.
Ron Chavey just had returned from a massive forest fire that burned thousands of acres across Crawford County when he got called about the downtown Gaylord blaze. Chavey, manager of the Salvation Army in Gaylord, drove to the scene Wednesday night and helped distribute water bottles to authorities as they battled the fire. He also plans to track down victims who lost their apartment in case they need financial assistance.
"Nobody got hurt, that's the main thing," Chavey said. "You can always replace things, but you can't replace an individual."
