Pine Street laundry and upstairs tenants evacuated safely
UPDATE: Building owners express thanks to volunteer first responders
By Andrew Harris, photo provided
Wellsville volunteer firefighters were toned out at 10am on Wednesday after a commercial dryer in a popular Pine Street laundromat on the west side of the village.
Wellsville 502 2nd Assistant Chief Kevin Fleischman took control of the scene and the crew made short work of putting out the fire. Fleischman reported this to the Wellsville Sun shortly after clearing the scene:
“We were met on scene with heavy smoke conditions with fire in one of the dryers inside the structure. On my arrival. The upstairs tenants were all evacuated. All 4 companies arrived together and made quick work of extinguishing the fire, and checking for extension. Damage was minimal. We were assisted with mutual aid from Andover Fire Department Air Truck, Willing Fire, Allentown had an Engine on Standby at Fire Headquarters, Wellsville Ambulance Corps, Wellsville PD, Allegany County Fire Coordinators, and Allegany County 911. Scene was turned over to the building owner.
The entire team did a great job! “
The O’Connor family has owned the building for generations. The Pine Street/Pleasant Street corner building is most famous for housing Frederick’s Grocery Store and has been a laundromat for decades. Chris O’Connor praised police, firefighters, and ambulance:
I just wanted to put out there a big thank you for all the helped today. The Frederick’s building has been a part of our family since the day it was built. One of dryers caught fire and our neighborhood was filled with emergency personal. WPD arrived first and assessed situation and provided a first look. The Wellsville Ambulance gave a place for tenants to stay, get checked out and keep warm. WFD was able to keep fire contained to just to one dryer and stopped the spread. So again a big thank you from the O’Connor family!
