Fire Damages Aberdeen Shelter

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By By KOMO Staff & News Services

Summary

Fire damaged the downtown Union Gospel Mission on Friday morning, sending 14 homeless men and mission employees into the streets.

Story Published: Mar 14, 2003 at 3:31 PM PDT

Story Updated: Aug 31, 2006 at 12:59 AM PDT

ABERDEEN - Fire damaged the downtown Union Gospel Mission on Friday morning, sending 14 homeless men and mission employees into the streets.

"Everybody's out and all right," said Gary Rowell, the mission's executive director, as firefighters mopped up. "The smoke detector worked the way it was supposed to, and the Fire Department was summoned through the monitoring system."

Rowell said he did not believe the fire would prevent the shelter from serving meals or providing shelter.

The two-alarm fire started at 4:55 a.m. on the inside of a back wall in the nearly century-old building at 405 E. Heron St.

"Most of the destruction was limited to their furnace room area," Assistant Fire Chief Doug Craig told The Daily World. "As we went through, we ruled every possible cause out with the exception of an electrical problem."

The 5,700-square-foot building sustained mainly smoke damage. Rowell could not immediately provide a loss estimate.