Damage estimated at $500,000

A fire captain said the investigation will take a long time.
AUSTINTOWN -- When Greg Greenwood got a call early Thursday telling him that the body shop at his car dealership, Greenwood Chevrolet, was on fire, he got really, really mad at his body shop manager.
"I thought, 'He didn't disconnect the battery on a totaled car,'" said Greenwood, explaining that this is a common cause of body shop fires.
But when he pulled around the corner onto Mahoning Avenue, he saw that it wasn't the body shop that was on fire, but a smaller building in back that housed the reconditioning shop, parts shop and car wash.
Firefighters arrive
The Austintown Fire Department was first on the scene, arriving at 4:55 a.m., two minutes after receiving a call from a passer-by with a cell phone who saw the smoke.
One of the firefighters said flames were coming out of the eaves when they arrived, but that when they first went inside the building there was only smoke.
Firefighters didn't have enough water pressure for two pumper trucks. So they hooked hoses to hydrants on Viall Road and Mahoning Avenue and snaked the lines through the dealership's parking lots.
Fire Chief Andrew Frost said a call was made to the Youngstown Water Department to ask for more pressure but the answer came back that it couldn't be done.
He said there's a hydrant just east of Greenwood near Taco Bell on Mahoning Avenue that could have been used but that all the hydrants feed off the same main line.
Overspray from the water aimed at the burning building turned the parking lots into fields of ice, and firefighters and onlookers had to step gingerly to keep from falling. Smoke billowed above the cars on the lot.
Tragedy averted
"This was one of the bigger fires this year," said Frost, adding that it might turn out to be the biggest. But it might have been much worse. With four to six firefighters inside the building, the men on the outside suddenly blew the air horns.
"They could see the roof starting to come down," said Capt. Don Conroy, whose truck was the first on the scene.
"The roof did collapse," said Frost. "Another couple of seconds and they would have been in trouble."
And the dealership is also thankful that there wasn't more damage to the property.
"What a fantastic job Austintown Township did," said Greenwood, adding that they'd also encouraged him to have a firewall built on the side of the car wash just this year. Frost said it was this firewall that stopped the fire from spreading to the large and busy body shop and to the showroom, which fronts Mahoning Avenue.
Greenwood said four to six cars were destroyed in the fire: two Hummers, two Trailblazers and maybe one or two other cars that were probably used and were being prepped for sale.
The Hummers and Trailblazers had been sold, but the titles had not yet been transferred, so they were still the property of the dealership. Greenwood said he thinks the total loss will amount to more than $500,000. This includes the parts, the building, which was about 35 years old, and the cars, calculating $50,000 for each Hummer and $30,000 for each Trailblazer, he said.
By 10 a.m. Thursday, the fire had been squelched, and by the afternoon there was just the smallest trail of smoke rising from a pile of ash inside the steel shell of a building.
The wooden frame structure had been demolished, and there was no sign of a roof. Icicles had already formed on the springs that drooped across the spaces where the garage doors has been.
Cause unknown
There was no indication on Thursday what may have caused the fire. Greenwood said there's no reason to suspect it was anything other than accidental.
"It burned from the back and it burned from the roof, and it burned quickly," he said.
He noted that the building's heating and electrical systems were in the roof. The heat, he said, would not have been turned off all the way at the end of the day on Wednesday.
Dave Roberts, Greenwood Chevrolet's operations director, said there was nothing especially flammable in the building.
"It's really just a place where we wash and wax cars." Six men were working in the building Wednesday, he said.
"Their jobs are safe," said Greenwood. "We just have to find another place for them to wash cars." That place, he said, may very well be the new Hummer building next to the dealership that is just being completed.
Capt. Chris Ludt is handling the investigation for the fire department.
"It'll be under investigation for a long time," said Conway. Frost said it might not turn up anything. "It's so burned inside right now, I'm not sure we'll ever be able to find a cause."
The Austintown Fire Department was assisted at the scene by the Weathersfield Township Fire Department.