Jamestown, ND (KCSi-T.V. News) — February 17, 2012, a fire ravaged a First Avenue North building used for storage by Vining Oil, also known as the Northstar Building and former Midwest Motors and threatened the adjacent Elks building.  View  Photo Album at Facebook.  

Video below also posted at Facebook.

If you’d rather go directly to the videos posted at You Tube,  click on the links below.

1st Video :  4 minute News summary

2nd Video: 1 minute Demolitian Slideshow (by Matt Sheppard)

3rd Video:  37 minute long form,  news conference, photos, and all video recorded.

Text Story from Feb 2012:

On Friday February 17, 2012, a fire at the Vining Oil storage building at 305 First Avenue, North was called in by a number of people seeing smoke coming from the building at 9:54 a.m.

At the height of the blaze smoke could be seen from the buildings for several miles.

35 City fire fighters were on the scene, and the Jamestown Rural Fire Department was on stand-by to handle any city fire calls, while the downtown fire was being battled by city fire fighters.

What ensued was fire fighters knocking down the huge blaze for several hours, in addition to efforts to save the former Elks building immediately to the south, which caught fire, from fire damage and from collapsing.

Sparks from the initial fire reached the elevator shaft of the Elks Building.

The Elks Building, was saved, as fire was confined to the back stairwell and elevator shaft.

Adjacent buildings were evacuated in case the Elks Building walls collapsed.

The Vining building contained 55 gallons, of full oil barrels and tires, in the Southwest corner of the building.

A 4-5 block area north of the fire scene was without power for a time, along with a half block south of the area.

Jamestown City Fire Chief Jim Reuther said no fire fighters were injured.

Fire fighters stayed on the scene the next 24 to 48 hours put out hot spots in the rubble in the basement.

After an investigation, Chief Reuther said the cause of the fire was termed “accidental,” and was started by an electrical issue with a tractor stored in the Vining Oil building.

Following more investigations that led to streets and sidewalks in the area being partially blocked to vehicle and foot traffic, the Vining building was demolished without incident a few weeks later.

CSi was on the scene recording fire and following up footage of the fire scene and demolition of the Vining Building.

The encore replay will be showing on CSi-T.V. 10, and on line at CSiNewsNow.com