SALAMANCA, N.Y. — As smoke continued to rise from the rubble
Saturday, investigators were looking for clues concerning who or
what started the devastating blaze at the vacant Philadelphia
Furniture Co. on Rochester Street in Salamanca late Friday
afternoon.

Salamanca Police Sgt. Benjamin Whitmore called the fire
suspicious and said five suspects, all juveniles between the ages
of 12 and 13, have been located and questioned. He said names
previously spray painted on the walls inside the building were
leads and a police officer working traffic control helped locate
the suspects.

Whitmore said he is working with state and county investigators,
as well as investigators from the Salamanca Fire Department, on the
incident.

“I’m hoping to finish up the fire investigation by tomorrow
morning, (the other agencies) have a couple more interviews to
conduct and then we should be able to move forward with charges,”
Whitmore explained on Sunday afternoon.

The situation began Friday when the Salamanca Fire Department
responded to a 911 call at 5:30 p.m. concerning smoke on the east
end of the four-story building, located at 100 Rochester St.,
according to Ed Frederickson, assistant fire chief for the
city.

“We arrived at the scene to find heavy fire on the east end and
started to attack it,” he said. “The fire began to be a little bit
wind driven from an easterly wind, pushing fire directly through
the building.”

By 7 p.m., the fire had engulfed the structure and spread to a
smaller vacant building across the street as well as the main
offices of Luminite Products, a laser-engraving company, at 115
Rochester St. At 7:30 p.m., Salamanca Mayor Jeffery Pond declared a
state of emergency in the city because of concerns about what may
have been stored in the buildings, like chemicals, and forecasted
high winds.

The fire was declared under control at approximately 11:30 p.m.
Friday.

All three buildings were declared total losses and the full
market value of the properties involved totaled about $1.5 million,
according to Barney Lee, assistant fire chief and code enforcement
officer for the city.

“The good side of this is we saved properties valued at $2.2
million, and that (figure) does not include the value of the
product that Salamanca Lumber has,” he said.

Salamanca Lumber and McHone Industries, both located nearby,
were able to be saved.

A total of 43 fire departments and law enforcement teams from
across Cattaraugus County responded to the alarm. Six firefighters
suffered minor injuries, but all were treated and released.

“All the departments did an excellent job,” Frederickson said.
“The departments worked extremely well together. We pre-planned
(fighting a fire at) this building numerous times, and it went
better than expected.”

The fire department was aware that the sprinkler systems in the
vacant Philadelphia Furniture buildings were not operational, he
said, and that was factored into the plan on how they would attack
a fire.

The two old furniture buildings, which totaled about six acres,
were owned by the Seneca Nation of Indians, which purchased them on
Dec. 31 after the Grandview Group of Jamestown failed to pay
property taxes.

The main building was built in 1923 and was for decades the
headquarters of the Fancher Furniture Co., which employed about 800
people at its peak in the early 1970s. Fancher sold the property to
Philadelphia Furniture Co. in 1997.

The building had been vacant for about a year and a half,
according to Whitmore.

Brian Erickson, who was president of Fancher Furniture for 15
years and worked there from 1961 until the 1990s, was watching his
grandson play baseball in Franklinville when he heard about the
fire.

“It’s the end of an era,” he said Saturday while looking over
the rubble. “It brings back a lot of memories, and mostly good
ones.”

During the blaze, firefighters were also forced to deal with
uncompromising weather, including a severe thunderstorm warning
issued around 11 p.m.

Frederickson said firefighting operations shut down temporarily
because of the storm but continued after the storm passed until 3
a.m.

Fire crews were on the scene all day Saturday extinguishing hot
spots as state forest rangers were inspecting the nearby hillside
to determine how much acreage was lost from small brush fires
caused by wind-driven ash and embers.

Frederickson said the last time he was in the building there
were few if any hazardous materials and the only real hazard to
nearby residents was the smoke, which should be expected for at
least a few days.

Whitmore added Seneca Nation officials were planning to gather
during their regularly scheduled council meeting on Saturday, and
he hopes to work with the Nation to clean up the area and reopen
Rochester Street to traffic.

There is no timeline for reopening the street, which is the only
road closed currently to traffic due to the fire, but Whitmore said
he hopes to have it open “as soon as possible.”

(Era Reporter Amanda Nichols contributed to this report.)

Olean, N.Y., man allegedly impersonates firefighter with stolen
gear at scene of blaze

SALAMANCA, N.Y. — While firefighters were battling the blaze at
the former Philadelphia Furniture Co. on Friday night in Salamanca,
an Olean man was apparently walking near the scene with stolen
firefighting equipment.

Bradley M. Thomas, 30, of Olean, was allegedly walking near fire
trucks on Rochester Street at approximately 9:52 p.m. wearing blue
jeans, an upside-down air pack, a firefighter’s helmet belonging to
the Kill Buck Volunteer Fire Department and a firefighter’s jacket
belonging to the Salamanca Fire Department, according to Salamanca
Police Sgt. Benjamin Whitmore.

When questioned about his attire by Whitmore and city of
Salamanca Assistant Fire Chief Barney Lee, Thomas reportedly said
he was with the Machias Fire Department, which was on stand-by but
never present on the scene.

Thomas was arrested for grand larceny in the third degree, a
felony, and criminal impersonation of a public servant in the
second degree, a misdemeanor near the scene of a fire.

He was taken to the Salamanca Police Department and arraigned
Saturday morning. He was sent to Cattaraugus County Jail in Little
Valley with bail set at $2,500.