by Rachel Hunter
Gouverneur Fire Chief Thomas Conklin on the morning of Wednesday, February 24 called the structure fire at Dashnaw’s Pizzeria, located at 174 East Main St., Gouverneur, a total loss. Due to the hard work and efforts of the Gouverneur Fire Department, the laundromat side of the business was saved.
In an interview with the Gouverneur Tribune Press at about 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning, Chief Conklin reported the following: “At 3:33 a.m., we were alerted for a structure fire at Dashnaw’s. A passerby called it in. On my arrival, I found fire showing in the roof. Engine 17 got here fairly quickly, and we went in and knocked the main body of the fire down. We stopped the fire from entering the laundromat. The laundromat has no fire damage inside. He is estimating anywhere from $600,000 to $750,000 in laundry equipment was saved. Obviously our goal when we got here was to contain the fire in the affected building. So, we did. We stopped the fire here from entering that way, and knocked the main body of the fire down. Unfortunately, the restaurant is a total loss. But the laundromat, with some electrical fixes and stuff like that, should be able to be up and running in the next few weeks. Our goal, obviously, if you can stop it from entering another business, and it is connected… the guys did a good job. We had every truck out of the department here, about 26 members. We fought the fire ourselves. Richville Fire Department did help us with traffic control. Overall, it is a sad day when a local business is affected like this, but best-case scenario, we put the fire out in the restaurant and we saved their laundromat. There were no injuries. Nobody got hurt. We are just here… I called the state investigators in, because the county fire investigators were not available – and I don’t do our own fires. We wanted to get a good fire investigation done, so we could determine the cause of the fire.”
Chief Conklin told the Gouverneur Tribune Press on Wednesday morning that they would be on scene until about mid-day. “There’s a lot of stuff from the ceiling that we have got to muck out of there,” he said.
More information will be reported once made available to the Gouverneur Tribune Press.