An accidental fire destroyed Nature’s Nook Salvage and Grocery store on Bundysburg Road in Middlefield Township March 14.
An accidental fire destroyed Nature’s Nook Salvage and Grocery store on Bundysburg Road in Middlefield Township March 14.
Middlefield Fire Lt. Ben Reed said a call came in at 2:22 p.m. about a lot of black smoke at 12960 Bundysburg.
The store, popular with local Amish families, was full of dried foods, paper products and lighter fluid, like most salvage stores, making the fire in the block building hard to fight, Reed said.
“It was kind of a nightmare,” he said, adding the rural location had no fire hydrants, so water had to be hauled in.
“We had to call in a bunch of fire departments,” Reed said.
The cloud of black smoke came from the Styrofoam in the freezers and refrigerators in the back of the building, where it caught fire first, Reed said.
The fire started as a result of someone burning trash behind the building. The flames spread out of control before firefighters arrived, he said.
“There was a lot of bad smoke,” Reed said.
Two firefighters were treated on site for smoke inhalation, but no injuries occurred and it was 9 p.m. before the scene was cleared, he said.
“It was a total loss of the building. The fire was ruled accidental,” Reed said.
The 7.3-acre property is owned by Rodney Nagy. A house and outbuildings set in the woods some distance from the site.
Reed said one flare-up was extinguished around midnight and he checked on the scene every hour or so.
“The last thing we wanted was for it to catch fire again,” he said.
