Coffee Pot Suspected In Blaze

An electric coffee pot which 'S boiled dry apparently was the cause of a fire which early Tuesday morning s w e p t I through the upper stories of a ■ downtown office building j causing damage estimated at ■ $500,000. Fire Chief Arthur L. Stauch said an investigation I ed yesterday by Fire Marshal I John R. Williams and Fire I spector Benjamin Zahn Jr. has revealed the strong ■ i bility of the coffee pot cause in the blaze in the Municipal Court building at Huron and Main Sts. "Perhaps we'll never be I solutely certain but these! I findings certainly are I ble," Stauch said. The fire marshal and I I spector Zahn said the coffee I pot had been left on a wooden I I desk in one corner of an I I fice occupied by the 1 I naw Legal Aid Clinic on the I I building's third floor. The last I Iperson having business in the law offices left about 9:30 I B p.m. Monday after flicking off I I the lights in the suite of I I rooms. There was no fire or odor of smoke at the time, the fire investigators said. 1 Ú, as it is believed, the electric coffee pot was left turned on or if the shut-off device on it was defective, the pot would have boiled dry a short time after the office was closed for the night. Heat in the pot would have continued to build up and eventually the red-hot container may have ignited numerous legal papers which were left nearby on the desk. The burning papers would then have set fire to the wooden desk which could have both burned and smoldered for several hours, Inspector Zahn said. Finally, heat from the burning desk apparently built up to a point at which the entire room and I virtually every inflammable I object in it burst into flame. "A flash fire like that would I envelop a room in seconds," I Inspector Zahn said. "The I burn evidence in the room in I dicates the most intense heat I and flame was at the spot I where the desk was located." He explained air in a room where a smoldering fire has begun becomes "superheated" and eventually causes inflammable objects to ignite. Once the fire had encompassed the Legal Aid room, shortly before 1 a.m. Wednesday, flames shot straight up walls and casements, burned through ceilings and reached into a large attic area above the third floor, the fire officials said. There were no fire "stops" in the attic and the fire spread rapidly to the west end of the attic, they said. Inspectors from the city's Department of Building and Safety Engineering Department and Fire Department officials made several tours of the third floor section of the building yesterday. The building remains officially closed but persons who occupied office space in the structure were permitted to enter with building inspectors to retrieve I some property. All persons I entering the building were I quired to wear construction helmets and protective I ing. Officials said there I ues to exist a danger from falling debris as ceilings and walls dry out and water and heat-weakened timbers start to sag. Fire Marshal Williams said all businsses in the building will be required to find new quarters pending a decisión on the renovation or razing of the old structure. Chief Stauch said there appeared to be virtuall no flame damage on the first or second floors of the building, although damage írom the million gallons of water poured into the building fire was extensive in both áreas. He said his men were pered in reaching the ñames I n the attic of the building in the first stages of the fire cause the virtually ed roof provided a snield against the streams of water from fire hoses. Once the fire burst through the roof, water I reached the flames but by that time the blaze was too wide-spread throughout thel thjrd story to control