Thread: Sad news from Juneau today. Historical buildings burn to the ground.

One of our well loved and much visited landmarks, the Holy Trinity Episcopalian church (built in 1896) and the original parish hall burned last night. Two adjacent historic gold rush era buildings, one a B&B and one a private home, burned as well.
The buildings burned were all from the Gold rush era. The Church was the second oldest in Juneau, built right after the Russian Orthodox Cathedral,(1895) and a major stop on the Juneau historic walking tour as well as the most often used of any of the old historic buildings in Juneau.
McPhetres hall has been Juneau's gathering place for as long as folks remember. Until it burned today it hosted weekly contra dances, and small theatre productions as well as the lenten festivities of downtown Juneau. It is only through heroic efforts of the Fire department that the fire did not spread throughout the area....the buildings adjacent are the oldest in town.

Power to the entire borough was cut for several hours. I woke up when the power went out, and realized it was out all over, as there was no radio stations on. This was about 5 oclock this morning.

As it is only 7 degrees here, Rocky and I were immediately up and out to the lodge and washhouse on the camp where we live firing up generators. I would much rather have stayed snuggly in bed, but couldn't. We stayed in the kitchen in the lodge (with the ovens on) and talked about our planned Freedom cruise in the WARM Caribbean until the power came back on. (Just a 1/2 hour ago) Then my son Jake who is a firefighter called to tell me about the fire. The power had been cut to the borough because for some reason they could not isolate the area where the fire occurred. (27 miles from my house.) They are investigating the fire. No conjectures yet as to how it started.
All of Juneau is mourning the loss of this lovely old church and community gathering place as well as the loss of the homes of two families.

Bunti,

We are also saddened that Juneau has suffered this loss.

We are cruising to Juneau for the first time this year and know this is a loss to the community there.

We are grateful that the damage wasn't worse, and we hope no one was injured.


LL

No one was injured, but a family pet is missing. There were no people injured to my knowlege, all got out safely. The fire was very hot, melting siding and blistering and making paint smoke that was over 80-100 feet away. We are lucky it did not spread thru the downtown.

Bunti I too am saddened by this.....while I've never been to Alaska (but hope to someday)......it saddens me anytime historical venues are destroyed.....please keep us advised.



Jim

Bunti...I am so sorry to hear of the fire. I am glad no one was injured. I pray they find the missing family pet. 7 degrees is awefully cold. I looked at picture of Juneau today and it looked misty...I guess that was the smoke still lingering.

Oh that's sad! Any idea how the fire started?

Sorry to hear about the fire.
It sounds like the JFD did a great job of controling the fire.
I know how close together buildings are in some parts of town.

oh how sad, sorry about the towns loss

Here is link to the newspaper report on the fire from the Juneau Daily News:
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http://www.kinyradio.com/juneaunews/...neau_news.html

I'm so sorry to hear of this terrible loss.