Firefighters credited with saving art, other items at Suffolk arts center

SUFFOLK

This morning’s fire at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts inflicted heavy smoke and water damage that will require the removal of both ceilings between the first and third floors in part of the building, a fire official said.

Michael Bollinger, director of the center, said he believed the damage to any artwork would be minimal and credited firefighters with acting quickly to protect a piano and a large sculpture.

“I’m actually feeling blessed, because it actually could have been a lot worse,” he said.

Before he was allowed inside to inspect the damage, Bollinger said he hoped events scheduled for this weekend could still go on.

Investigators are working to determine the cause of the stubborn blaze, which kept firefighters busy for hours. Bollinger said he was told it likely was electrical.

The building's sprinkler system kept the fire in check, said Capt. Jim Judkins, fire spokesman. But it also made it difficult for firefighters to track the source and make sure the blaze was extinguished. It was declared under control shortly before 8 a.m.

A fire alarm system at the building, the renovated Suffolk High School at 110 W. Finney Ave., helped alert dispatchers about the blaze at 5:15 a.m., Judkins said. When firefighters arrived, they found smoke coming from the three-story building. A second alarm was called.

Judkins said the fire was likely smoldering for days in a large wooden beam between the second and third stories, under the offices for early childhood development and senior services. Staff said this morning that they thought last week they had smelled smoke but never reported it to the fire department, Judkins said.

Judkins told foundation members for the center this morning that the ceilings between the first- and third-floors where the fire happened would have to be replaced and the entire building would have to be cleaned of an “awful, awful smoke smell.”

Judkins said it was too early to give even a ballpark estimate of the total cost of the damage.

The burning beam was over an art gallery on the second floor and a gift shop on the first floor. Firefighters were able to move paintings and some of the hand-made art gifts from the shop to keep them safe, Judkins said.

The Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts opened in 2006, after a $21 million renovation to the 19922 building that included about $7 million in city money.