SPRING GROVE, Minn. – The origin of the fire that destroyed a Main Street landmark may have started in an upstairs apartment, but it seems unlikely that anyone will ever know for sure. After the fire was controlled — but not yet extinguished completely , Fire Chief Trent Turner ordered the remaining rubble be leveled. “The only way to extinguish it finally was to pull the building down,” he said. Even so, Turner has asked the state fire marshal to investigate. What Turner knows for sure was that by the time the fire was discovered, flames already had climbed into space between an earlier roof and a new roof. At some point in the past, he said, the old roof had gone bad and a new roof was laid on top. “That’s where the fire had gotten into,” Turner said.
Downtown void. ThE two-story Ace hardware building once stood at 123 West Main Street. It’s like an essential organ is missing– a heart perhaps, said one townsperson who watched through the night from a safe distance down the block.
Firefighting nightmare
Gary Solie, a neighboring property owner, about the cold and wind that compounded problems facing firefighters. To television station WKBT, he said: “They’re ice. Their coats were ice. Their hands were ice.”