At 4:30 am Thursday morning Toledo Edison was finally able to restore power from Wednesday’s severe thunderstorm that caused a small fire at the BMW services building on Commercial Street. Within minutes Toledo Edison noticed smoke coming from the BMW services building and called the Wauseon fire department.
The Wauseon Fire Chief stated at the beginning it was tough to get to the fire due to if being an old building and having a metal roof, firefighters had to cut through the metal roof to fight the fire. By this time the back and inside structure was fully engulfed. The Wauseon fire department requested mutual aid from Archbold, Swanton, Lyons, Morenci, and Delta making this a 6 alarm blaze.
The fire chief stated they were able to get the fire under control and out around 6:30 am and the insurance investigative team was inside the building around 7:45 am but the BMW building is fear to be a total loss and could end up needing to be demolished. The fire departments were able to save the two structures next to the BMW building and they only sustained minor smoke damage. A Morenci firefighter stated that they arrived on the scene around 5:00am and encountered heavy smoke and that most of the damage was to the back of the building. The fire chief stated the fire started due to Wednesday’s storms that knocked down a huge tree behind the DMV that caused wires to fall on the BMW building then the surge from the power reconnect rekindled the blaze.