Firefighters are still working to find out what caused the blaze that destroyed the Stratham Tire building on Manchester Street in Concord on April 15.
Deputy Chief Sean Toomey of the Concord Fire Department said investigators are interviewing witnesses, collecting surveillance videos from neighbors and picking apart what tidbits they can learn from the charred scene.
“When there’s really nothing left of the building, it makes a much more challenging investigation,” he said Monday.
The tire store went up in flames about 6 a.m. before any employees were due into work. Toomey said investigators haven’t found anything that made them suspicious of wrongdoing.
Toomey said he expects the analysts at the scene may come to a conclusion within two weeks, although two of the pertinent investigators are on vacation this week. It’s “too early to tell” whether they’ll definitely be able to produce a cause, he said.
The building, which was originally built in 1952, didn’t have a sprinkler system. Toomey said the state’s building code makes special consideration for structures that store hazardous materials, such as tires, but they have to be “pretty significant size” to require sprinkers.
He estimated, “To get to the requirement, it’s more of a warehouse, probably, than just a tire building.”
Stratham Tire purchased the building next door to the old location at 92 Manchester St. on Friday and plans to move in and reopen for business within two months, President Denise Littlefield said last week.
The new location will have a sprinkler system; although, Littlefield said she suspected that sprinklers wouldn’t have made a difference in the fire. Tires burn so readily that the general wisdom in the tire industry is that sprinklers often can’t stop the burn.
“Everybody in the tire business knows that,” she said.