  Firefighters pour water on a downtown Richland roof. |
RICHLAND, Mo. (July 5, 2010) — One of the oldest downtown buildings in Richland will probably have to be torn down as soon as possible following a Monday afternoon fire, according to Tri-County Fire Chief Rick Hobbs. “I’ll have to tape the whole thing off tonight. On an old masonry building like this, once the bricks get hot, the mortar deteriorates and even the firefighters are in danger,” Hobbs said. The building, known as the “Big Dollar Store,” is a seasonal artificial flower shop owned by a former Richland city administrator from the early 1990s, Daryl Durossette, and his wife. The store is mostly open around Memorial Day to sell flowers for grave decorations. From the front, the building doesn’t look too bad apart from obvious fire damage inside. However, Hobbs said the building had a three-inch-thick tarpaper roof that burned so hot that the entire roof collapsed, taking down the back side of the building and forcing firefighters to use a city-owned backhoe to rip apart the tarpaper to extinguish the blaze. Click here to read more on Pulaski County Daily News ...
By Darrell Todd Maurina
