Dr. Glen Rowe vividly remembers the day a fire burned out his medical office. A nurse practitioner at a nearby clinic heard the building was ablaze and called him the afternoon of June 1 to ask if that was so. A call to 911 confirmed it.
“I grabbed my keys and took off … it was disappointing to see the building engulfed in flames,” he said. “It was like a giant fireplace because it’s a brick building.”
Though initially listed as an “accidental burning no specific crime associated” by the State Fire Marshal in a June 13 report, a final report written July 1 states the fire was caused by city of Dover workers who were moving live electric lines.
The Dover Post recently received the initial report and subsequent July 1 report after filing a Freedom of Information Act request June 11.
The report, written by Robert Borkowski, senior fire protection specialist for the Office of the State Fire Marshal, outlines events leading up to the fire as city workers moved power lines in anticipation of a future road widening project.
“The one employee stated, that after the conductors were connected to the transformer … it was turned on,” the report read. “He then took testers to the meter boxes to check the phases for current.
“While checking the power, he realized that the neutral wire was connected to a hot phase,” it continued. “He then yelled to the co-worker to turn off the power.”
When the worker looked up he saw smoke coming from the building’s eaves, the report said, adding that the fire department was called to respond.
Borkowski summed up his review by writing that any metal that came in contact with the live wire would become energized and would remain so even if a circuit breaker were tripped.
Four fire companies responded to the blaze in which Dover’s fire marshal began the initial investigation but turned it over to the state fire marshal because the medical building lies just outside the city’s jurisdiction.
Dover City Manager Tony DePrima declined to comment on initial reports about the fire in June stating the “matter is under investigation by the city of Dover’s insurance company” and that he had “been instructed by the insurer not to comment until they have completed their investigation.”
He since has referred all questions to Human Resources Director Kim Hawkins, who did not return phone calls requesting information such as who is the city’s insurance carrier and where the investigation currently stands.
