By Richard J. Chaisson - Telegram & Gazette Staff
ATHOL, MA _16 MAY 1996
A spectacular fire burned the large N.D. Cass Toy Co. warehouse to the ground, destroyed a home next to it, and damaged six other occupied homes on South Athol Road early Thursday. The blaze, visible for miles, sent embers rising hundreds of feet. The embers drifted east onto distant midtown properties and rooftops, including Town Hall on Main Street and the Club 3 tavern at South and Exchange streets, damaging both, officials said. Police and passers-by pounded on doors to alert sleeping residents, who got out without apparent injury, Fire Chief Lee Lozier said. Twenty-one adults and two children were evacuated from seven affected homes.
This is an excerpt from the Worcester Telegram and Gazette story that ran on Friday morning, May 17, 1996.
Between 80 and 100 firefighters were on the scene fighting the warehouse fire that engulfed the 5 story wooden building that covered nearly an entire acre since the 1880's.
Rail traffic on the Boston and Maine Railroad was halted for hours as the tracks run close to the building. Fire caused damage in a number of nearby houses and sent fire brands throughout the Athol area.
Mutual aid fire companies said the flames from the fire reached several hunred feet into the air and could be seen for miles as they responded to Athol shortly after 3:00 a.m.
Found below are some black and white pictures from the fire. You can choose to view any of these in color by clicking on the individual picture.
The photos of the Athol fire were taken by William Fisher of Orange.
There are other "Hot Shot" Pictures from around the North Quabbin Area found on the Orange Fire Department Home Page.
You could have received updates and information
on this fire and many others around the East Coast
and around the country if you were a member
of the East Coast Paging System.
A 29-year-old man was arrested Wednesday and charged with setting the fire that destroyed the N.D. Cass Toy Co. warehouse last week.
Mark J. Chase was arrested at his home at around 6:30 p.m. He was scheduled to be arraigned today in Orange District Court on one count of burning a building, said Detective Robert F. Bouchard.
Chase admitted setting that fire and another fire last July at a single-family house on Pine Court, Bouchard told the Telegram &Gazetteof Worcester. No serious injuries were reported in either fire.
Bouchard said Chase was identified as the suspect after an investigation ``led us into the neighborhood down there, and people were giving us information and we followed up on it.''
Chase, whose home is across the railroad tracks from the fire scene, is being held at the police station in lieu of $50,000 cash bail.
Information in the above text appeared on the AP Wire.
