Staff photo/Rhonda Silence Grand Marais Fire Chief Ben Silence (left) and North House staff inspect the damage to the “A” building, the Tom Eckel Fishhouse replica, caused by a fire in an adjacent trash dumpster. Fortunately the fire was noticed before significant damage occurred.
A fire in a trash dumpster at North House Folk School in Grand Marais was extinguished quickly on Sunday, avoiding a disaster like the fire on March 19, 2001, which almost completely destroyed the campus “red” building. TheJuly 5, 2009 fire was spotted just a few minutes before midnight by Aaron Eubanks, an intern living in the apartment above the school’s new Mill Shop.
Eubanks said he was reading and heard a strange crackling sound outside. He looked out to see a raging fire in the large dumpster next to the Tom Eckel Fishhouse replica building, the “A” building. After calling 911, Eubanks and the other North House intern Heidi Loosen rushed downstairs. Loosen notified the people staying in the room upstairs in the Fishhouse building, North House guest instructor Larry Schmitt and his wife, Lynn.
Cook County Sheriff Deputy David Gilmore arrived to see the dumpster fully engulfed next to the building. He and Eubanks grabbed buckets and headed to the lake, dousing the fire with water. The fire was under control before the Grand Marais Fire Department arrived at 12:04.
Firefighters helped move the dumpster away from the A building and left the scene by 12:20 a.m. Grand Marais Fire Chief Ben Silence and North House Director Greg Wright assessed the damage to the A building, which appears to be only cosmetic. The building’s siding is scorched and the window that was next to the dumpster cracked.
The cause of the fire is unknown. Wright said no classes had taken place that day that involved any combustible materials.
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