Demolition begins on burned downtown Rocky Top building
A contractor’s crew began tearing down the rest of this building at 319 S. Main St. in downtown Rocky Top on Monday and removing the debris. The building was destroyed by fire Jan. 23, killing one of the occupants of its five second-story apartments. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
Rocky Top City Manager Michael Ellis told the City Council during its February meeting last week that the teardown and clearing of the site would take up to three weeks.
No cause has been released yet for the early-morning fire that resulted in the death of Danny Cecil Parks, 68, who was a resident of the building.
The building, at 319 S. Main St., included a first-floor warehouse and the second-story apartments. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has not yet released a report on the cause.
Built in 1925, the building was completely destroyed and much of it collapsed during the fire, which was reported at 3:56 a.m..
Firefighters from at least nine departments were on the scene fighting the fire most of the day.
Rocky Top Police Chief John Thomas told The Courier News at the time that firefighters had to rescue several people from the apartments on the second floor of the building, which is next door to the Coal Creek General Store.
Some residents gave harrowing accounts of waking up to flames shooting out of vents into their apartments shortly before 4 a.m., and waking up other residents to try to get everyone safely out of the building.
Parks, who was known to many by his nickname “Horse,” reportedly had safely exited the building, but died after he went back in to check for anyone else who might have been still inside.
“Rocky Top fire got the call at 3:56 a.m., and got here before the building was fully involved with fire, and got the residents out,” Thomas said. “About eight people were displaced.”
Besides Rocky Top and Clinton, other fire departments on the scene included Ridgewood, Medford, Caryville, LaFollette, Briceville, Marlow and Andersonville.
The fire did not spread to any other structures.
The building that burned is separated from Coal Creek General Store by a parking lot, but another building, on the north side, is separated from the burned building by a very narrow space.
Thomas said that space, plus the brick construction of the two buildings, protected the adjacent building from the fire.
