MARSHFIELD, WI (WSAU-WDLB) — Marshfield fire officials know where the Wesley United Church blaze began, but they don’t know how.
Fire Chief Scott Owen said to WDBL in Marshfield the Sunday afternoon blaze broke out in the kitchen on the lower level of the building and had been burning for some time before fire crews were notified just after two p-m. “Without doing a deep digging, a lot of rubble removal it’s very difficult to ascertain exactly what happened. The building was turned back over to the pastor and the insurance company. And now the insurance company is deciding if they are going to perform the dig out and look for a cause. Or if they’re going to go with what the state fire marshal came up with as undetermined.”
Owen said the official investigation wrapped up Monday night after the state Fire Marshall’s Office spent the day on the scene. Owen says investigators know where the fire broke out based on burn patterns and where firefighters and witnesses first noticed flames, which were spotted coming from the kitchen window along East Third Street.”The investigators kind of start in that area. See where the fire spread based on burn patterns, based on heat, different markings throughout the building. And then they start pinpointing it down to different areas. They check appliances, they check everything. Everything is done in a systematic fashion. Not only with our department but we also did have investigators from the police department in because we have to have them in play until it’s ruled that it’s not criminal.”
Owen says the fire is not criminal in nature, and there was no foul play. He does not have a dollar estimate of the damage. 32 firefighters from Marshfield, Hewitt, and Richfield were used to battle the blaze. “We maintained a fire watch all night. Two firefighters rotated every few hours to make sure there were no smoldering fires. To keep control of the building until the state fire marshal could get in. The call came in about 2 and everybody was back here at 11ish with the exception of the night watch. The other fact of it is we did have an ambulance out of the station. We had 8 people on duty we had 2 on the ambulance. We started fighting this fire with 6 people and 6 in a house fire is difficult. 6 in a church is nearly impossible.”
Owen estimates that more than 700-thousand gallons of water were used to fight the fire. The nearly 100-year-old church is considered a total loss. The structure that burned was built in 1921.
