RORY SCHULER and MARC LAROCQUE
Taunton Daily Gazette
Reprinted with Permission

Taunton - Several Taunton Fire Department trucks blocked the intersection outside
Taunton City Hall this morning, in an attempt to stop a smoking fire
from spreading out of control.

Taunton Mayor Charles Crowley called the fire “suspicious” during an on-camera interview with WCVB-TV.

“I said it was ‘suspicious,’ but I’ll leave it at that,” Crowley said after the interview. “It’s got to be investigated.”

Crowley said he will defer to police and fire investigators for all other details regarding the fire’s origin. “All fires are suspicious,” he said. “There are circumstances about this – it’s not an employee.”

He confirmed that Star Theater owner Michael O’Donnell was in City Hall this morning, around the time the fire was first noticed. Crowley said O’Donnell was the only non-employee in the building.

A fire broke out at approximately 8:30 a.m. in the upper left corner of the building, with about a dozen people inside, according to city officials.

At 9:30 a.m., billows of smoke could still be seen leaking from the top left corner of City Hall (if viewed from the street).

Deputy Fire Chief Scott Dexter said the fire filled City Hall with smoke. “When we got there, there was heavy smoke throughout the building,” he said at the scene.

Crowley said the building will not be open for the rest of the day, Tuesday.

Gwen Borden, a clerk in the engineering division on the third floor, said she saw the flames shooting from the building’s attic area. “I could see an orange glow coming from the hallway,” said Borden, who was using her office computer at the time, with another worker on the floor. “I went to the stairway ... flames were coming down the stairway shooting right at the door.”

Borden said she and her co-worker Noreen Skwarto used two different stairways, but at first she was not sure that Skwarto escaped. “I said, ‘Where’s Noreen? Where’s Noreen,’” Borden recalled. “The mayor said, ‘Go, go.’ I said, ‘Where’s Noreen?’ Then I kept yelling ‘fire’ and went down the stairs. I feel very lucky and very, very blessed.”

One worker inside the building on the first floor said no fire alarm was going off, but she looked out the back window to see other workers filing out.

“I wouldn’t have known unless I looked out the window,” said Karen Corrigan, a clerk in the water department. “A fireman came in and was yelling. It’s a little scary. It was filling fast with smoke. That’s not what I need my last day here before vacation to be.”

The mayor and department heads held a meeting at the Old Colony Historical Society this morning, to decide where city business will be conducted in the meantime. He said that city officials will mostly have to deal with smoke and water damage, and will have to determine when they can go back inside, and what building they will use until then.

After the meeting, Crowley announced a second 4 p.m. planning meeting to be held at 110 County St., the Old Pole School, where “we’ll see what can be done so the function of government can go on at a new location on an interim basis.”

Taunton City Council will also be held tonight, as scheduled, but at the school building instead of City Hall, Crowley said. City Hall workers, except department heads, were dismissed from work for the day,he added.

Crowley said he expects the building could be closed for several days, adding that the left side of the building was most affected by water and smoke damage. The mayor said that records that were held in the attic area of city hall were possibly destroyed, although some are backed up
electronically. “It’s possible that some may be lost,” said Crowley.

Taunton Fire Chief Ron Nastri said that early damage estimates put the cost of the blaze in the “tens of thousands of dollars” range.

A State Fire Marshall arson investigation unit has arrived on the scene to work alongside city fire investigators. So far, Nastri says “nothing’s amiss,” and that investigators have yet to find any signs of accelerants. A dog has been brought in to sniff the fire scene for evidence.

Raynham, Berkley, Rehoboth and Norton fire departments assisted on the scene, while Lakeville and Dighton firefighters covered two city stations.

Nastri described the blaze as “a four-alarm fire.” “Mostly because we needed manpower because it was so hot,” he said. One firefighter was injured, Nastri added. The firefighter, who suffered from smoke inhalation and heat, received attention in an ambulance but then returned to work.

Nastri also said he did not hear a fire alarm when crews arrived on the scene.

While ash showered down upon the area, one family gathered along with about 100 onlookers to see the action. “My aunt told me it was on fire,” said Yvonne Gray, whose three children were lounging on a sidewalk across the street from city hall. “You don’t get to see this much excitement in Taunton; except a drug bust.”

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