Published: May 20, 2009 12:12 am         

Downtown fire impacts several businesses

TERRE HAUTE — Bill Strecker had just closed a real estate transaction in the offices of Allied Abstract and Title Co.

“Finished up about 4:30 p.m.,” he said Tuesday in the building’s west parking lot about three hours later, watching flames erupt from the roof as firefighters ringed the entire block with hoses.

The building at 321 Ohio St., which houses the title company along with Modesitt Law Offices, Conley Real Estate Appraisals and the Frey law firm, burned to the bricks in a blaze that began about 5 p.m. and continuing throughout the evening.

“Oh, yeah,” Strecker said as clouds of smoke cloaked visibility from Third Street to Fourth Street along Ohio. “Everything’s gone.”

And while Strecker was certain the paperwork of his transaction would have to be redone, his concerns were for the businesses and employees of the building. “I feel sorry for the people who work in there,” he said. “Everything’s gone.”

By 8:30 p.m., Terre Haute Fire Department aerial units were still hosing water into a shell of smoking bricks, but nearly 25 years of boxed paper kept embers burning into the night.

Vigo County Prosecutor Terry Modesitt said he opened his private law office there in 1985.

“I just thank God nobody got hurt,” Modesitt said repeatedly, as emotional colleagues walked from blocks around to offer condolences while every burnable fiber of cardboard and paper evaporated.

City Attorney and Modesitt’s law partner, Chou-il Lee, wearing jeans and a casual shirt, circled the building in disbelief, bewildered as were others at the duration of the fire.

Mayor Duke Bennett watched from the nearby parking lot of Regions Bank as runoff water from the fire hoses pooled to grown men’s shins at Ohio and Third streets, running south past Walnut, carrying dark embers and dirt.

“In the beginning, it appeared they were going to get it out,” Modesitt said about 7 p.m. “But then it just kept growing.”



Brian M. Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.