The Missouri State Fire Marshal's Office continues to investigate a fire that destroyed a South 11th Street commercial building housing two businesses and storage units on Friday afternoon.
Regional Chief Investigator Jason Dunn and Investigator Rachel McColley sifted through the rubble for most of the day Monday, said Poplar Bluff Fire Chief Ralph Stucker.
"They were here on the day of the fire, and they could see how the fire was progressing," Stucker explained. "They had the opportunity to speak with different people from the businesses" that day.
Stucker said fire investigators will start interviewing any witnesses, including those with Mellon's City Cab and Gold Rose Tattoo Studio, today to obtain statements.
The cause of the fire at this time is undetermined and remains under investigation, Stucker said.
"We still haven't found anything" to say "here we are" as far as the cause, Stucker said. "We have an area" in the basement where the fire may have started, but "nothing to tell us" what caused the heavy damage in that area.
As fire officials examined the scene Monday, street department personnel again provided an excavator to assist.
"With the amount of metal that we had, the street department came out (Friday) with an excavator and cleared debris ... to get a lot of the metal out of there so we could extinguish" the fire, Stucker said.
All of the metal, according to Stucker, had fallen into that basement area, so "what they did (Monday) was pull a bunch of the metal out of the way.
"Then, we were able to go in there, dig down to the floor in the storage units and hallway."
Stucker said they washed the concrete down to "see if we has any indications of anything being poured in there" or "any inconsistencies in the concrete."
None were found, he said.
There was so much debris that as fire officials cleared a spot out, the water and debris would fill back in, said Stucker.
Their efforts, Stucker said, were hampered by the contents of the storage units.
"There were all kinds of things people had in the storage units ... we had to deal with that," said Stucker, who indicated car parts, including a transmission, lawn mower parts, a 30-pound propane tank and 1-pound propane bottles were among the stored items.
Stucker said they had a hard time understanding how there could have been so much fire in the hallway.
"There was a lot of heat damage," he said.
Although the upper floor collapsed, "we don't think it would (cause) that much (damage) in the corridor," Stucker said.
It was in that area that fire investigators found "greater oxidation," which means there was a greater amount of heat and fire in that area.
Stucker said that area is located toward in the middle of the building, about a quarter of the way from the east wall.
"Jason could not grasp how there could be that much oxidation in one area of the hallway," Stucker said. "The fire load was right there."
Something, according to Stucker, happened to make the fire progress that fast.
This fire, he said, was not one that smoldered.
"When our first truck got there, the amount of smoke coming out of the basement and the amount of force coming from the smoke" indicates it was well seeded and had been burning for a while, Stucker said.
Smoke, he said, was coming from both ends of the basement level, as well as "we had something coming out upstairs.
"That lets us know we had a lot of fire. ... The amount of heat was incredible."
Stucker said the back wall, which firefighters could see buckling out, came down within about 45 minutes of their arrival.