Roxburgh may yet lose the landmark brick facade of its cinema building — all that remains of the town’s former hub.
And a fire investigator says the cause of Thursday’s blaze that razed the rest of the town hall building may never be known.
Central Otago District Council property and facilities manager Gareth Robinson said the building’s facade was being assessed by engineers to see if it could be saved.
The building had no heritage status so there would be work required to see whether it would be cheaper to replicate rather than save the original facade.
Whichever option was chosen, safety would be the first consideration, Mr Robinson said.
"I’m going to be moving pretty quickly on this.
"If I can’t make it safe, it’s going to have to come down."
Roxburgh Chief Fire Officer David Welsh was one of the town’s many residents who was struggling to come to terms with the loss yesterday.
CFO Welsh became emotional as he gazed at the bulldozed pile of rubble — remnants of the town’s former hub.
The building’s fire alarm sounded just before noon on Thursday, he said.
It was immediately apparent the situation was not good and the alarm was escalated.
"There was smoke showing from the roof, but if there’s smoke showing from the roof that’s usually an indicator that we’re going to be here for a while."
"We tried to commit a crew to the inside — it was unsafe.
"Tried to commit a crew to the roof — it was unsafe."
The firefighting effort was then focused on the outside.
It was an exceptionally short time frame from the fire being called in and it being intense.
The size of the building and the close proximity of houses, the Goldfields Hotel, which houses NiVan workers, and the Roxburgh Motels, was uppermost in his mind.
Smoke drift across the town as well as bystanders and traffic on State Highway8, which runs directly past the building, also caused concern, he said.
The Roxburgh volunteer brigade finished up about 8.30pm and a crew of professional firefighters from St Kilda stayed onsite overnight to monitor the situation.
Water from a fire appliance with an aerial ladder was set up during the day to protect nearby buildings, which probably saved the nearest corner of the motel, CFO Welsh said.
Just how close the buildings were to each other was not something anyone seemed to have realised until the fire, he said.Fire appliances from Millers Flat, Heriot, Clyde, Alexandra and Dunedin attended.
People were evacuated from the surrounding area in stages as the fire progressed through the building.
Like many others involved in fighting the fire, CFO Welsh grew up in the area and had a personal connection with the buildings.
"Watching it burn ... it was gutting," he said.
"The town hall, the supper room, it’s a loss, but the picture theatre, it’s the big loss in this."
Fire and Emergency New Zealand specialist fire investigator John Smalls, of Queenstown, was required to investigate the fire due to its scale.
There was no initial suggestion of anything suspicious about the fire, but every possibility had to be considered, he said.
Mr Smalls was still investigating, but believed the building’s fire alarm had worked.
There were also multiple calls to 111 and that was a good thing, he said.
Demolishing the town hall was not his decision, but it would have been made to contain the fire, he said.
There may never be a cause found for the fire due to the level of destruction, he said.
"There’s just not enough left.
"For this investigation, it will be very much based on witness statements and what people saw."
At this stage it looked like the fire started high in the building or the roof space, he said.
There was nothing to suggest it was caused by an electrical fault any more than any other cause at this stage, he said.
In a Facebook post yesterday, the council said an early engineer’s report found the remaining facade was unstable.
"There is a very real risk of collapse."
The site would be fenced off until a full assessment was completed.
Security teams would keep regular watch over the site at the weekend, it said.
Fenz Otago district manager Phil Marsh thanked the Roxburgh community for the "tremendous support" they gave emergency services.
"People were quick with offers of food and assistance, and they reacted quickly to the request to conserve water so that we could draw what we needed from the town supply."
