For those still waiting for a final pronouncement on the cause of the Eastern Market fire of April 30, 2007, be prepared to wait a little longer…maybe forever. As the City Paper reported in December (Cover Story, “Was This Really an Accident?”), various D.C. Fire & EMS personnel believe (and a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives report insinuates) that the three-alarm fire started on the outside of the building—a synopsis that contradicts the publicly stated opinions of District Fire Chief Dennis L. Rubin, who believes the inferno was caused by an electrical problem.

Eight months later, things are still muddled.

In the most recent issue of the Hill Rag, Rubin appears to be hanging tough with his original conclusion. Referring to a “final report” on the market fire, he explains that the blaze  “was determined to be electrical in nature with four or five suspected sources, but accidental in nature.”

But the report Rubin is referring to, authored by D.C. Fire employee and certified fire investigator Sgt. Phillip C. Proctor, doesn’t corroborate Rubin’s outlook. With 10 pages of painstaking detail followed by a one-paragraph conclusion, Proctor’s report is, at the very least, noncommittal. “Based on a systematic fire scene examination,” it surmises, “witness statements, and all the available information to date, it is the opinion of the undersigned that the origin of the area of this fire is near the west wall (Side C) of the structure. The exact point of origin has not been identified at this time. The cause of this fire has not been determined and is currently still under investigation.”

Not exactly the wrap-up a “final report” would merit.

The most damning blow to Rubin’s electrical-accident hypothesis, however, isn’t found in the ambiguity of the report’s conclusion, but in a bit of juicy info appearing on Page 8, where Proctor mimics—verbatim-0z–a bullet found in the ATF report on the fire:

All evidence of electrical activity found during this investigation was a victim of the fire and not its cause.

Fire department public information officer Alan Etter says in an e-mail he doesn’t think Chief Rubin’s statements and Proctor’s report are at odds.

“I think while the cause of the fire has not been definitively determined, anyone who’s looked at [the report] thinks it was caused by malfunctioning electrical equipment,” he writes. He adds that Chief Rubin was just “saying what everyone who’s looked at [the report] is sure of.”

—Rend Smith

(Photograph by Arthur Delaney)

Earlier this week, we wrote about Eastern High School’s Marching Band, which is scheduled to play in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement Festival in Canton, Ohio this Saturday.

The band needed to raise $3,900 for a roundtrip bus ride. The group was relying on paychecks from students’ jobs with the Department of Employment Services’ Summer Youth Program. But, when the District’s payment system failed, students came up short. As of Monday, the group only had $500.

Fortunately, band leader James Perry can now wipe the beads of sweat off his forehead.

“It has been an amazing week,” he says.

Since news spread about the band’s plight, several major donors have stepped up to the plate. Matchbox, the Chinatown restaurant, donated $1,100. Several other Capitol Hill residents got in touch with the band and opened their wallets: one woman threw down $1,500 to $1,600 to help with the bus deposit; two others contributed a combined $2,000, says Perry. Read the rest of this entry »

DCist marks the one year anniversary of the fire that gutted much of Eastern Market. Apparently, the renovation project will be finished months and months behind the promised deadline of January 2009. So what’s stalling this project? The blogger notes several important issues and does a good job illuminating them. One biggie: Interest has faded.

Some of this can be attributed to the simple fact that we all just move on to the next big news story: the fight over the school closings, Banita Jacks, a crime spike, Sean Taylor, Nationals Park opening, the Mount Pleasant fire, etc.

But I also think that maybe—just maybe—people don’t really care about Eastern Market. Every other neighborhood seems to have a farmer’s market. And some of them are better–and actually sell local produce from local farmers–than the Cap. Hill mothership. If you can pick out a good cut of lamb or a tasty apple a few blocks from your front stoop, why bother with Eastern Market? Before the fire, Eastern Market was the place you took your parents.

So there are delays. And still, no one has figured out the actual cause of the fire.

I got a call today about all those suspicious fires in Capitol Hill. A fire fighter wanted to address the Capitol Lounge fire that did serious damage to the watering hole’s back patio area and an adjacent card shop on August 9. The fire department had claimed that the blaze was caused by a smoldering cigarette left in a bucket. This fireman says he was there and that the damage–especially to the back awning–just couldn’t be caused by a cigarette.

“You can throw three or four cigarettes in a bucket and leave it,” he explained. “The likelihood of it burning and torching a place? No.”

But he doesn’t believe it was caused by the dumpster being torched. “I remember pushing the dumpster away from the wall. But the dumpster wasn’t a factor,” he says. “The dumpster was a non-factor.”

The saga of the Market 5 Gallery continues.

This morning a gallery employee discovered that the historic arts space’s locks had been changed. This latest drama centers around back rent and other fees the city and its minions claim the Eastern Market gallery owes. It’s the city’s second such eviction push in seven years. You can read the gallery’s own narrative of the disputes here.

Gallery Executive Director John Harrod says he received an eviction letter three weeks ago. The letter stated that he had to be out of the gallery’s North Hall space on Dec. 31. Another letter followed, he says, claiming that he owed $12,000. He says although that figure is in dispute, he quickly wrote a check for $9,000 of the $12,000.

Harrod had planned to take his fight over that sum to court. He says that the figure included bogus maintenance fees and snow removal fees–which the gallery takes care of on its own.

Now, Harrod has another court battle–one that he didn’t anticipate. “It’s obviously illegal,” Harrod says. “You can’t just lock your tenant out. You have to go through the courts.”

“Here we go again,” says Donald Temple, the gallery’s lawyer. “Wrong is wrong. It’s documented that Market 5 Gallery is making a historic contribution.”

The gallery and Harrod have spared with the city over just about everything. Still, the gallery had managed to hang on.

Last spring, Eastern Market went up in flames. But the gallery’s North Hall location had been miraculously spared from the damage.

Now there’s the new locks on the doors.

“We have a couple of performances coming up this week. There’s a tango event on Thursday,” Harrod, 60, says. “I’ll try my best to resolve this before then.”