Fire Destroys Former Brown Shoe Factory Building in Salem

The old Brown Shoe Factory building at West Whitaker and South College Street in Salem has been destroyed in a huge fire late Wednesday night that was so hot the heat caught a house across the street on fire causing heavy damage.  The fire also cast the north and west sides of Salem into darkness as the main power line that serves those sections of town fell to the ground in front of the factory after several transformer explosions.

The large structure that formerly housed the shoe factory is now used for storage by Dalton Storage. It was not immediately clear what was being stored in the building.

The State Fire Marshal's office and Salem Police have joined Salem Fire Marshal Bill Fulton in investigating the cause of the fire.

Salem Fire Chief Roger Mann says a portion of the west side of the building was already fully engulfed on his arrival around 10 pm and then spread quickly.

"Within a few minutes it was totally involved the full length east to west, the whole building, and then it dropped down onto the floor. It spread really quickly. We did have radiant heat damage to a house across the road. It was just a matter of us having time to get set things up. It was so warm we couldn't do anything with it. It got into the house and burned the attic and upstairs out of it. Probably not inhabitable again," said Mann.

Mann says the heat from the fire was incredible.

"It was tremendously hot just standing out there. We tried putting a deck gun on it off one of the engines on the ground. We rotated guys two and half to three minutes apiece just so we could keep water on the fire and keep the house cool. We weren't even able to really do that until some of it had burned down part of the way," said Mann.

Because of the heat, explosions, collapsing walls, and the fear of falling power lines, firemen held off putting water on the Brown Shoe Building until much of the building had collapsed.

Mann says he is not aware of any injuries. The George and Crystal Sloat family were able to get out of their home at 521 South Pearl, but they along with their two children lost most of their possessions.  

Salem Firemen received mutual aide assistance from Mt. Vernon and Centralia who brought large aerial trucks to the scene to shoot water onto the fire from above. Odin, Iuka, Kell, and Kinmundy-Alma Firemen were also called to assist. 

Salem Police received help from the Marion County Sheriff's Department and the Salem and Marion County Emergency Service Agencies for traffic control and to keep spectators back.  

Ameren crews could not immediately begin restoration of power because the fire scene was too dangerous. At the height of the outage, 1,433 were without power.