BARRE CITY — Spring sunshine reflected off the granite of the famed Barre Opera House onto Prospect Street on Friday morning, where business bustled as usual. But across the street was a different story.
What had been a 12,000-square-foot warehouse, flanked by the city’s post office and local pub Gusto’s, was now a pile of rubble. A large fire Thursday morning had leveled the structure, known as the Bonacorsi building, after firefighters had put out a smaller fire the night before.
The property is owned by Thomas Lauzon, who was mayor of Barre for 12 years, is currently a city councilor, and has played a major role in many recent developments in the city.
Neither Lauzon nor Barre City Fire Chief Keith Cushman could be reached for comment on Friday.
City Manager Nicolas Storellicastro told VTDigger that Cushman reported the cause of the fire is as yet undetermined.
Storellicastro said Deputy Fire Chief Joseph Aldsworth called him Wednesday at about 7 p.m., notifying him of a small fire in a large trailer parked at the mostly empty warehouse, located only 50 feet or so from Storellicastro’s office.
Storellicastro headed over to look. While a lot of smoke had been produced, it wasn’t terribly concerning at that time, as Barre firefighters had already finished dousing the fire, he said.
“The major, active part of the response had ended by the time I got here, so I went home and didn’t think anything else of it,” Storellicastro said.
The property had several structures on it: the warehouse, an unconnected back office space, and a tractor trailer that was close to Gusto’s. The Bonacorsi family had operated a food service business there for many years before winding down about 20 years ago.
Inside Gusto’s on Wednesday night, owner Josh Dickinson saw the emerging flames and called emergency services while evacuating customers out the side door, away from the Bonacorsi building, which sat about 10 feet from the pub entrance.
“I thought it was in my building at first,” Dickinson said. A bartender told him state police advised using a fire extinguisher to douse the flames. Employees gave it a try, but Dickinson told them to stop because of the danger, and leave things to the fire department.
With the pub evacuated, everyone was gone by 6:45 that night.
On Thursday at about 5:15 a.m., Storellicastro got another call, reporting a fire at the Bonacorsi building. Storellicastro replied that he’d seen the fire the previous evening.
“No, it’s on fire again. And this time it’s really going,” the dispatcher told him.
Dickinson started getting calls at about the same time, and found the fire raging next door to his pub — though it appeared to be in a different area than the first one.
Dickinson checked on apartments above the pub, as they hadn’t been evacuated.
Thursday morning’s fire was far more intense than the first, pulling in fire departments from East Montpelier, Montpelier and Williamstown to assist the Barre Fire Department, according to Storellicastro.
“It’s really surreal to see, you know, standing right there outside the office, looking at this raging fire. It’s daunting,” Storellicastro said.
On Friday, Lajeunesse Construction, based in Barre, was working on the rubble that used to be the warehouse. Prospect Street had reopened, Gastro’s was open, and Dickinson was grateful that his pub was intact.
“I mean, I’m just kind of shocked it didn’t light up our building,” Dickinson said.
