Large 4th Of July Fire Decimates Historic Building In Tacoma

A large fire razed through a historic 20,000-square-foot building in Tacoma on the 4th of July, according to KOMO.

Firefighters responded to the blaze that was consuming Coast House Materials on Tacoma Avenue South near 15th Street. The fire caused a partial collapse, and what remained of the building was torn down with heavy equipment, reporters said.

The Tacoma Fire Department said no injuries were reported.

Coast House was a building supplies company that has served the community for over a century. The building opened in 1895 and stayed in business until 2001. The family who owned the business sold the building three years ago, but Connie McHugh still rushed to the scene after getting the call about the fire.

“We are going to miss it terribly,” McHugh said, who is the current owner of the business. "It was shocking, but yet I was always worried about the 4th of July."

Now McHugh and neighbors believe fireworks sparked the fire.

“At this point, there’s a lot of debris stacked up and that's where we find most of our evidence,” Bruce Bouyer said, who is the assistant fire chief at Tacoma Fire. “So it’s really going to be difficult to identify the cause.

Bouyer asked the public to honor the fireworks ban in the wake of this loss.