Three buildings caught fire on Main Street in Guerneville late Sunday night, Aug. 22, suffering major damage while the cause remains under investigation, according to Cyndi Foreman, a fire marshal for the Sonoma County Fire District.
Fire crews were dispatched at 10:09 p.m. due to multiple callers reporting a building in flames, she said. The fire began at a vacant ice cream shop and spread east to a print shop and then finally to a clothing boutique, Foreman said, at addresses 16450, 16442 and 16430 on Main Street.
These addresses had at least previously been occupied by the Flavors Unlimited ice cream shop, Dee Dee’s Guerneville Graphics & Printing and Gypsy Sisters, an open clothing store.
According to the fire marshal, the cost in damages is estimated to be about $300,000 per building, and further, that each property is estimated to have 900 square feet of damage. Fire crews did not leave until around 4 a.m., she said.
The print shop was just catching fire when crews reached the site, “and that is going to be a total loss,” Foreman said. “The crews were able to make a really good stop with some moderate damage to the third building, but we were able to salvage a lot of the contents of the business in that third building.”
Foreman described how the structure fire crossed the feet of space between the print shop and the clothing business’ adjacent walls, breaching the boutique and spreading into its attic space, damaging the roof as well.
Marina McTaggart, office and operations manager of the Russian River Chamber of Commerce, was not available for comment at the time of publishing.
