The former location of the Tumble Inn Diner caught fire over the weekend, and while the location of the building is in a spot where it could have presented a risk of spreading, the Claremont firefighters were able knock it down quickly with no issues.
According to Claremont Fire Chief Jim Chamberlain, on Saturday 3:55 p.m., firefighters responded to 1 Main Street for a report of smoke coming from the front of the diner car.
“Upon arrival, there were workers on scene who were shrink wrapping for winterization purposes,” Chamberlain explained. “As a result of their operations they started a fire at the front of the building. We responded, pulled off some of the paneling and identified an active fire on some of the wood members of the trolly car.”
The department used an inch-and-three-quarter hand line to extinguish the blaze. He said they were at the scene within one minute of being toned, and had it out within a half hour.
“My understanding is when you are shrink wrapping a property, you use heat guns to melt the shrink wrap, and during that process they started a small fire,” Chamberlain said. “They did call right away and gave us good information on who they were and what they were doing, and gave us a lot of assistance for our operations.”
Chamberlain said after the fire was knocked down with no issues, firefighters checked the rest of the building including the basement area for any extension and found none.
The diner has been closed for several years and in 2021 was the subject of suspected arson. In this case, nobody aside from the workers were at the scene when the fire happened, and no injuries were reported.
Chamberlain was happy that his crew was able to keep the fire at the point of origin, saying this is a unique building and there was potential for the flames to spread.
“It is extremely close to the Moody Building, so any active fire in that trolly car, if it gets a good head start on it, could present an intense operation for us,” Chamberlain said. “It was a very well executed operation by the duty crew identifying the fire and putting the hoses where they needed to be. They did a really nice job.”