Woman, 81, dies

Reports are that Kathleen Harper, 81, died in the one-storey building she owned along the Eastern Main Road.

Investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the fire, which is believed to have erupted at the back of Harper’s home.

Fire officials said Harper lived with two relatives on the upper floor while the ground floor was tenanted to the owners of NARS Discount Hardware.

Her relatives, including a niece, were not at home at the time of the blaze.

Sunday Newsday understands the tenants, Andy Assing, had only been occupying the space for six months.

Damages have been put at an estimated $6 million.

Fire officers responded to the report at about 10 pm. They believe the elderly woman fell through the building’s upper floor as her remains were found in a crouched position in the hardware store beneath. Officers said the blaze also consumed an adjacent business, Browne’s Furniture Store, a household name in the district.

Manager Sandra Browne, who lives a short distance away at Ninth Street, told Sunday Newsday by the time she got there the furniture store was not yet on fire.

“I went up there and my building was not on fire yet. I was told that the building next door was on fire but the wind was blowing so heavy that it looked as though it would catch the roof of my building and within minutes, even though the fire tenders were there, my building caught afire,” she said.

Browne said the water supply also was inadequate.

“So, because the water supply was inadequate, they were not able to contain the fire and eventually other tenders came and about three water trucks came. But by the time those water trucks were on the scene, my building on the top floor, was destroyed.

“It’s a warehouse, it contains mattresses, wooden furniture, so, the moment the fire spread across there, within minutes that was a towering inferno and a result of that there was that nothing was saved.” Browne praised the work of the fire officers, whom she said, worked fearlessly to prevent other buildings from being destroyed.

“Some of the tenders went to the back and wet them so in this way just two buildings were lost in the back,” she said.

Browne said she was struggling to come to terms with the disaster.

“I don’t even know what to think,” she said. “My grandmother lived on that spot and 60 years ago there was a fire on that spot.

“I stood in my grandmother’s shoes last night (Friday) because I was told it was before I was born.

She stood there and watched it burn to the ground.

“And I watched the property that replaced that house burn to the ground in much the same way. It was a surreal type of situation just standing in my grandmother’s shoes.” Browne said the business had ten employees.