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Fire investigators tour building
By Ed Runyan
NEWTON FALLS
Trumbull County fire investigators toured the Talanca building on West Broad Street downtown Monday in hopes of determining what started the fire that caused $600,000 to $700,000 in damage to the 1800s-era structure Saturday morning.
Investigators from the Trumbull County Fire Investigative Unit examined the building and interviewed witnesses, but they have not reported a cause, Bauman said.
The fire started in the southeast rear apartment on the second floor at 4:20 a.m., but much of the damage was done in the first-floor Health Treasures store, whose stock of foods and vitamins was destroyed by water damage.
Water, heat and smoke damage also was done to two other first-floor businesses.
The apartments were occupied when the fire started, but everyone escaped uninjured, and no fire personnel were injured.
The fate of the brick building itself, built in the late 1800s and owned by the Talanca family of Newton Falls, will be determined by a structural engineer, said Richard Bauman, chief of the Newton Falls Joint Fire District.
It’s not known when that analysis will be complete, though Bauman hopes it is soon.
The Talanca family and the insurance companies involved are hiring the structural engineer to determine whether a portion or all of the building can be saved.
Until then, a portion of West Broad Street in front of the building will remain closed to traffic because of the potential for the building to collapse into the street, Bauman said.
At Monday night’s Newton Falls Village Council meeting, Police Chief John Kuivila said the road closure is causing concerns among business owners on Broad Street who fear loss of business.
Their businesses are still open, despite traffic being diverted onto other streets, Kuivila said.
Newton Falls resident Dave Hanson told council Monday he hopes village officials will be patient with the Talanca family because the family will be under great pressure to make decisions quickly that could have an adverse effect on the family and the town.
“That’s a beautiful old building. The last thing we need to do is knock down something of significance,” said Hanson, who was owner of a building that burned in Cortland.
Losing the Talanca building, which was damaged in the 1985 tornado and later restored, would be “like losing a tooth in the front of your mouth,” Hanson said.
It took firefighters from Newton Falls and several other departments until 2 p.m. to put out the fire, Bauman said, adding 175,000 gallons of water and two aerial platform trucks were used.