Updated at 9 p.m.
Firefighters battled a huge blaze in Montpelier on Wednesday evening — the second fire to strike downtown after the devastating July flood. No injuries were reported, but a city fire truck was lost in the fast-moving blaze.
“Once again, we’re just getting clobbered,” Montpelier Mayor Jack McCullough said, standing in front of the charred scene as smoke billowed into the night sky.
The fire was reported shortly after 6 p.m. by a person cleaning up at rk Miles, a building supply business on Stone Cutters Way.
Fire Chief Bob Gowans said a city crew was battling the fire when the winds suddenly shifted, sending flames their way and forcing them to retreat. Their fire engine was lost, he said. It was fortunate that nobody was injured and the fire was contained to the site, he added.
“This was a very fast, rapidly moving fire,” he said.
McCullough was grateful for help from firefighters based in neighboring communities who responded, including Northfield, Barre, Middlesex and East Montpelier. The nearby Hunger Mountain Co-op closed because of the fire, according to its Facebook page. There were no reports of injuries or damage there.
According to its website, rk Miles has eight locations in Vermont and two in Massachusetts.
This is not the first fire to hit the city’s downtown since the July floods damaged dozens of businesses. Last Saturday, a blaze struck the Mad Taco, a popular restaurant, and also damaged the bar next door, Charlie-O’s World Famous. Mad Taco, which flooded in July, had reopened only days earlier, the Bridge reported.
After that blaze, residents were already feeling that Montpelier was bearing more than its share of misfortune, the mayor said. “People were saying, ‘What could happen next?'”
This article appears in Oct 25-31, 2023.
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