 The building is owned by the Oasis Senior Center and is on the
city's historic buildings list.No official report has been
released from the Lincoln Fire Department, so information gleaned
thus far is from a variety of witnesses who worked in buildings
close by.
According to Mayor Keith Snyder, he was participating in the
D.A.R.E. golf outing at the Elks Country Club. He was just leaving
the club at around 5:30 p.m. when he received a call from Patrick
Doolin telling him the Oasis was on fire. Doolin is owner of
Integrity Data, located in the historic Scully building two blocks
from the Oasis on Kickapoo Street.
Snyder said he came straight to the downtown square and was able
to assist Lincoln Fire Department Chief Mark Miller by calling all the backup
fire companies on the chief's emergency call list.
On the scene, LDN staff witnessed the presence of firefighters from
Sherman, Atlanta, Middletown, Emden, Latham, Lincoln Rural, Beason
and Hartsburg. It is unknown at this time if that is the complete
list of all the area fire departments that were involved.
Also on scene were the Logan County Paramedics and the Logan
County EMA communications command center.
LDN arrived on the scene at approximately 6 p.m. At that time
smoke was billowing from the roof of the Oasis. Firefighters were on
top of the building, cutting holes into the roof.
Within minutes flames were shooting out of the roof. Fire
departments then proceeded to position ladder trucks armed with
water and start spraying down into the second floor of the building.
According to Snyder, the upstairs apartment of the Oasis had
recently been vacated, and there was no one at the Oasis Center. He
said he was told that a family in an adjacent apartment did evacuate
but were unable to get their pet out. The fire department did go in
and rescue the pet.
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While all of this was going on, another fire broke out in another
part of town. According to Snyder there was a fire on North Logan
that fire departments also had to deal with.
By 7 p.m. smoke was filling the city for several blocks.
Firefighters were working to knock down the fire at the Oasis, and
at the same time, prevent the fire from spreading to other
locations.
According to Snyder they were successful in keeping the fire from
spreading to other buildings.
By 8:30 p.m. most of the smoke had subsided and there were no
visible signs of fire. Firefighters had two ladder trucks spraying
the roof area of the building still at 8 p.m. and by 8:30 had shut
down one of those trucks.
Among those who had heard from friends with businesses on the
block was Seth Goodman. Goodman said he had talked to Bonnie at the
Logan County Title Co. She recounted to him that at 4:20 something
drastic happened. She said the folks in the office didn't know what
it was at the time, but it was very frightening.
City Alderman Tom O'Donohue was also on the scene. O'Donohue has
his residence on North Kickapoo in the O'Donohue building. He
recounted that at approximately 4:20 something happened that shook
his building.
It was also reported that there were electric outages, phone
disruptions and computer failures in buildings around the downtown
area at that same time, including the offices of Sally Litterly at
the Logan County Courthouse.
A thunderstorm was recorded at the Logan County Airport with
lightning in all quadrants at 4:15 p.m.
As stated earlier, no official reports have come out from the
fire department. LDN will bring those reports to its readers as soon
as they are available.
[LDN] |
