The empty factory at 235 Canal St. that burned Wednesday morning was a popular spot for vandals and vagrants.
As of 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, the Shelton fire marshal was trying to pinpoint a cause for the blaze, which was reported at about 1:30 a.m.
Shelton Police Det. Sgt. Kevin Ahern said police are treating the fire as suspicious unless they can prove otherwise.
“There (was) no power into the building and we can’t find any other reason other than human design to cause the fire,” Ahern said. “Whether it’s an arson fire or an accidental fire, that determination is to come.”
Ahern said police are investigating the blaze, but he couldn’t reveal details about the probe because it is too early.
“We’re following up the leads that we have and we’re working on trying to determine the cause,” he said.
Vagrants
Property owner John Watts said Wednesday afternoon he was constantly trying to keep people out of the 28,000-square-foot building that once housed the Apex Tool company.
“You board them up, still homeless people break in. It’s all posted ‘Keep Out,’ with signs. They still break windows, break in, and do anything they want to do,” Watts, a real estate investor from Norwalk, said.
The fire heavily damaged the old factory building and also spread to Better Packages, Inc., a business next door.
Shelton developer John Guedes, of the Primrose Companies, once co-owned 235 Canal St. with Watts. He echoed Watts’ sentiments.
“Even when we had bought it from him and had it for a couple years, our biggest problem was keeping derelicts out of the building,” Guedes said, guessing that either arson or a careless squatter were to blame for Wednesday’s blaze. “No matter what you did to board it up, they found entry.”
John Wieczorkowski, the plant manager at Better Packages, Inc., said adventure-seeking teens were also a nuisance there.
“I’ve seen kids running in and out of there ever since Apex Tool went out of business,” he said.
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The Fire
Firefighters were first dispatched to 235 Canal St. about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday after police reported the blaze at the two-story brick building.
There are also several smaller structures are on the rear of the property, near the Housatonic River.
There was no one in any of the buildings when firefighters arrived on scene.
Firefighters from all four of Shelton’s volunteer fire companies, as well as crews from Derby, Ansonia, and Trumbull battled the fire well into the morning.
Though they were able to knock down the bulk of the flames soon after arriving, the fire had spread into the roof of the building housing Better Packages, Inc. at 255 Canal St.
Crews cycled in and out of the building for hours to contain the blaze as aerial units showered the structure with water. Firefighters also climbed onto the building’s roof to attack the flames.
One firefighter was treated for a twisted ankle, but no other injuries were reported.
The Fire Marshal’s Investigation
Shelton Fire Marshal James Tortora said Wednesday afternoon that a state police dog used to sniff out accelerants responded to the scene as part of the probe into what caused the fire.
“I can’t say we didn’t find anything, there’s still some further testing that has to be done,” Tortora said.
He wouldn’t say what that testing would entail, saying he didn’t want to reveal too much about the investigation.
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“We still have people to talk to, so the investigation is continuing,” Tortora said. “We hope we have an answer as quickly as we can.”
Tortora said he didn’t think Wednesday’s blaze was connected to a spate of recent arson fires in the region, from separate outbursts of roadside brush fires in Shelton, Derby, and Orange to several arsons in vacant buildings in Bridgeport.
Click here to read more about the brush fires from a previous story.
“There’s no relation to Bridgeport and the brush fires, and we don’t think there’s any relation to this,” Tortora said. “The thought never crossed our minds, let’s put it that way.”
“There may have been squatters in the building,” he went on. “It wasn’t a totally secured building. People kind of went in and out freely.”
No Sale?
Watts said he had been due to sell 235 Canal St. this week, but those plans are now in limbo. What’s worse, he has no insurance for the land.
“You can’t afford insurance on these old buildings. (Insurance companies) don’t want them,” he said.
Watts wouldn’t reveal to whom he planned to sell the property, only that they planned to redevelop it.
“Most of the structure was going to be torn down,” he said. “Now we have to re-evaluate our plans and find out what we’re going to do.”
“The property’s still good. I might develop it, I might not develop it,” he went on. “I don’t know what I’ll do at this point.”
Next door, Phil White, the owner of Better Packages Inc., vowed the company would be open for business Thursday.
“Shelton’s fire department did a phenomenal job, because where the fire was, it was extremely difficult to get to,” White said. “Between the sprinkler system and the fire department they did a magnificent job.”
“It’s not terrible,” White said of damage inside Better Packages, which employs 33 people full-time.
He said he met with officials from the company’s insurance provider Wednesday and didn’t anticipate any problems.
The heaviest damage was to an area of the building used mainly for storage, White said. An engineering lab in the rear of the building suffered some damage, but that wouldn’t affect day-to-day production.
“We’ll be back in production tomorrow,” he said. “It may not be full, but we’ll be back in business. Certainly by Monday we’ll be back up and running virtually 100 percent.”
“It could have been a disaster, but we were very fortunate,” he said.
