Fire In Monroe Causes Extensive Damage To Black Swan Warehouse

By Shannon Hicks

A five-alarm fire in Monroe on February 6 caused extensive damage to a warehouse space that was being used by a nearby Newtown business. Monroe, Stepney, and Stevenson fire companies, Long Hill Fire Department from Trumbull, and United Fire Company of Botsford were all called to 476 Pepper Street in Monroe, where a structure fire had been reported in the building on that property. The building was being used as a warehouse for Black Swan Home, Hearth & Gift, a home heating and fireplace business in Newtown, and as the office for Christopher Michael Associates, Inc, a landscaping company.

Due to its location in the Stepney section of Monroe, it was the chief of Stepney Volunteer Fire Company No. 1 who was the incident commander. Chief Mike Klemish said the building may be a total loss, as is most of the inventory that was being stored in the warehouse space of Black Swan Home, Hearth & Gift. The building was approximately 40 by 80 feet, with a wall dividing the building in half.

“There was a partial roof collapse, and the half with Black Swan was totally gutted,” Chief Klemish said Wednesday. “I believe they were able to salvage some stoves, but most of it was destroyed in the fire.

“There was so much fireplace equipment stored in Black Swan’s half of the building that it really hampered the operation,” said the chief.

The warehouse was the temporary storage space for Black Swan while the business’s headquarters at 182 South Main Street in Newtown is expanded.

Tom and Carrie Swan are in the process of expanding their current 1,600 square foot location to an 8,000-square-foot relocation in the lot directly behind the Black Swan’s current address at 182 South Main Street. Mr and Mrs Swan received approval from the Planning and Zoning Commission in April 2006 for a special permit to allow redevelopment of the Swans’ 1.2-acre site. Work began shortly thereafter to build a new, larger, and more elaborate facility for the business that will include a showroom, store, warehouse, office space, and open areas. The original store will eventually be demolished, and parking will be provided for 24 vehicles.

With the new building going up, the Swans needed to take down all of their on-site storage at their Newtown property and move it to an off-site warehouse. The Swans had been leasing the Monroe warehouse space since April 2006.

“We were going to be using the warehouse until the new building was up and running and the inventory could be moved in there,” said Tom Swan, Jr, who works for his parents and serves as the sales manager for Black Swan.

The “furnace [at the warehouse] just basically blew up” when his father went to check on it Tuesday afternoon, he said.

“The blast knocked him off his feet, and that blew him backwards into shelving,” said Mr Swan. “He’s alright, though,” said Mr Swan about his father. “He’s very rattled, but he’s doing well.”

Tom Swan, the owner of Black Swan Home, Hearth & Gift, called 911 from the warehouse when the fire started.

“He notified the fire department on his cellphone,” said Chief Klemish. “We received the call at 4:49 pm. As soon as I arrived and saw what we had, I called for mutual aid from Botsford for an engine and Long Hill [in Trumbull] for a ladder truck.

“The storage of stoves — wood burning, pellet burning, gas grills — it really made it hard,” said Chief Klemish. “It was only a temporary location for them, for storage, for warehouse and shipping, that they had a lot of stuff in there.”

The building at 476 Pepper Street was a concrete block structure with a wood joist roof. Most of the joists in the Black Swan area of the building burned through, and that is was led to a partial roof collapse.

United Fire Company of Botsford was called out for mutual aid to Monroe at 4:58 Tuesday afternoon. Botsford sent seven firefighters, plus one engine, to the scene.

“There was very heavy smoke conditions and fire showing from a couple of windows,” Botsford Chief Wayne Ciaccia said on Wednesday afternoon. “When we got there I found the incident commander, who gave us our instructions.

“We vented the rest of the windows around the perimeter of the building, then we made entry through the back door,” Chief Ciaccia continued. “Our crew was only in there for about ten minutes before the building was evacuated. They were worried about the roof collapsing.”

“There were some steel I-beams, and when steel heats it expands, so between the joists burning and the steel expanding, I saw a dangerous situation developing,” said Chief Klemish. “I initiated an evacuation of the building and we went into defensive mode.”

After ordering all firefighters out of the building, crews were relocated around the building’s exterior.

Chief Klemish said it does not look like a suspicious fire.

“It’s still under investigation with the fire marshals, but we believe it started in the furnace room, or that the furnace started the fire,” he said.

Approximately 65 firefighters were at the scene, some for as long as five and a half hours.

There were no injuries to any of the firefighting personnel. The one injury reported at the scene was to Tom Swan, who singed his beard when he tried to put the fire out with a fire extinguisher.

Firefighters were on the scene until 10:30, said Chief Klemish, whose company was the last to leave the scene Tuesday night.

“We cleared the scene at 10:30, but didn’t get the trucks back into service until 12:15 am,” he said. It took that long to repack all the hoses, pack air packs, get equipment back into its proper locations, and clean up everything so that the trucks could immediately respond to the next emergency, said Chief Klemish.

One of Botsford’s engines is currently out of service, so when Engine 551 went to the Pepper Street incident on Tuesday, Botsford called on Sandy Hook to keep an eye on its district.

“I called dispatch to have Sandy Hook stand by at our firehouse with one engine and a crew” in the event another incident took place while Botsford’s operating engine was still in Monroe, said Chief Ciaccia. Botsford returned to its station, according to its fire log, at 7:10 pm.

Business at Black Swan was altered on Wednesday — including the cancellation of a promotional sale of all in-stock items — but its employees were optimistic.

“Everything’s gone” from the warehouse, said Tom Swan, Jr, on Thursday morning. “Obviously it’s going to affect the flow of business, but our initial focus is to keep everything on track. We’re going to keep customers’ appointments for installations. We’re trying to keep that schedule as close to what it initially was.”

“I had to reschedule yesterday. We cancelled all of our appointments for yesterday,” he continued, “but we’re working with our insurance, the company that we work with has reps coming today to look at the damage and talk with us.

“The bottom line is, that was inventory and it’s replaceable. No one was seriously hurt, and we’re going to recover.”