June 18, 2010

A Thursday night fire outside the Kmart on Hydraulic Road may have been intentionally set, Charlottesville's fire chief said.

Chief Charles Werner said based on the fire scene analysis, the Fire Marshal's Office reports it believes the fire may have been intentional.

"Any time we have an intentionally set fire, that raises the bar of concern, based on why somebody would have done that and is there any potential chance of it happening again," Werner said.

Factors leading to this conclusion include the elimination of other fire causes, the amount of pedestrian traffic in the immediate area and the intensity of the fire. Firefighters quickly contained it, but Werner said it could've been much worse.

"A little bit more timing, the fire could have extended inside the building and, of course, inside the building, we have a lot of storage and combustible materials, and that could have created a very intense fire," Werner said.

No one was injured in the fire, but the Kmart store was evacuated.

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ORIGINAL STORY:

June 17, 2010

Charlottesville's Kmart store on Hydraulic Road was evacuated for a little more than an hour Thursday evening after a fire broke out on the side of the store.

Charlottesville Fire Chief Charles Werner says pallets caught fire outside of the Kmart store and smoke was sucked in through the air conditioning.

The fire occurred in the back of the store near the loading docks where trucks are unloaded.

It does not appear there is major damage inside the store, but a garage door in the back was destroyed. Werner says a commercial store like Kmart the outcome could have been much worse.

"The storage for Kmart can be a wide variety of things, it came be anything from flammable liquids to chemicals to plastics and everything else, so if the fire had gotten inside the storage area it would have been a much more intense fire," Werner said.

Werner said the evacuation was a precaution, and no one was hurt.

The store reopened to the public after 7 p.m. on Thursday.

The fire marshal says the investigation into what initially caused the blaze is still under investigation.