First Responders Put Out Flames at Thunder Bay Theater

An observant Alpena City Police Officer was making rounds early Sunday morning when they noticed a fire coming from the area of the Thunder Bay Theater. This comes just months after efforts kicked off to restore damage from the building’s 2020 fire. Andy Marceau, Alpena City Fire Department community risk reduction captain, said, “We got paged out at about 2:48 a.m. We got here with 7 personnel on duty and I came shortly thereafter, then we did a full department page to get all off duty personnel to come and help assist with this building. Once we got to a certain point we looked at it and made a decision to basically write off the back portion, the cold storage, as you can see back here, and managed to stop it before it entered the actual Thunder Bay Theater.”

While the front building likely has smoke and water damage, luckily, no injuries or loss of life were reported. “Obviously, this is going to be a total loss back here,” said Marceau. “We are currently investigating, myself and Detective Sergeant William Gould, from Alpena City Police Department, looking for the origin and cause of the fire.”

Crews from multiple agencies stayed on scene until approximately 9 a.m. to shut down the flames.” Great job by all people involved,” said Marceau. “It’s a team effort when you have a large structure fire, from Alpena City Fire, CRTC, Alpena police department, DPW, DTE, and Alpena Power.”

While the cause of the fire is under investigation, now is the time of year when fires relating to heating sources a large risk. “You know, it is winter time, people are starting to using their furnace obviously more, and space heaters, and different things,” said Marceau. “Be cautious, take the extra minute, you shouldn’t be burning space heaters at night, don’t put anything combustible near them, and play it safe.”