Fire destroys Good Sam Rehab thrift store, hair salon and pawn shop
<p>Coeur d'Alene Fire Department firefighters battle a fire at a strip mall at Fourth Street and Hazel Avenue Wednesday evening. A salon, thrift store, and a pawn shop are severely damaged. The cause of the fire is currently under investigation.</p>
<p>The strip mall near the intersection of Fourth street and East Hazel Avenue in Coeur d'Alene seen Thursday morning after a fire destroyed the building the night before.</p>
<p>Broken glass is seen scattered around the entrance of the Good Samaritan Rehabilitation Thrift Store Thursday morning.</p>
<p>The Good Samaritan Rehabilitation Thrift Store seen Thursday morning after a fire, which started around 11 p.m. Wednesday. destroyed the store, the Tangles hair salon and a pawn shop near the intersection of Fourth street and east Hazel Avenue. The cause of the fire is under investigation.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE — As she examined the destruction from a Wednesday night fire at the Good Samaritan Thrift Store in Coeur d'Alene, Nancy Cafferty said that God brings beauty from ashes.
"This is not the end, this is the beginning," Cafferty, who manages the thrift store, told The Press Thursday morning.
At 10:08 Wednesday, the structure fire was reported at a strip mall on Fourth Street and Hazel Avenue which houses the Good Sam thrift store, Tangles Hair Salon, and a pawn shop. Multiple fire departments responded to and fought the blaze for hours, and Coeur d'Alene Fire Inspector Bobby Gonder said nearly everything inside the businesses was damaged.
"Everything is destroyed. It's 100 percent destroyed," Cafferty said. "All the proceeds from this store go to Good Samaritan to fund sponsorships for people who want to go to the rehabilitation program. That's what is heartbreaking about all of this. We have this glitch in our progress. We lost so many things that were donated to use because people love us and care about our program."
The store supports a local substance abuse rehabilitation ministry of the same name.
Gonder said a Coeur d'Alene Fire Department battalion chief called in a second alarm - for more personnel and equipment - five minutes into firefighters' attack on the blaze. Shortly after, he called a third alarm for even more help.
"That just means we've really got a fight on our hands," Gonder said. "It wasn't going to be a quick, spray some water and we're calling it good, incident."
Personnel from Northern Lakes Fire District, Kootenai Fire and Rescue, as well as Mica Kidd Island Fire District responded as well.
Some residents and witnesses reportedly heard loud, explosive-like noises coming from the blaze Wednesday night. Gonder told The Press that he did not observe any pressurized damage, nor did he see any other signs that would indicate an explosion occurred.
"There are very heavy roof units on top and two of those units collapsed," Gonder said. "When they fall through and hit the floor, it kicks up the fire and makes a lot of noise. I am 99 percent positive that noise people reported was from those roof units falling in."
A cause has not yet been determined, but Gonder said Thursday morning there was an area in the northwest corner of the building that was "really intriguing" him. He estimated it will take a few days to complete an investigation and determine the cause.