ELIZABETHTOWN — A downtown owner and her renter are mourning the loss of a building that has been a source of many family memories.
CA Nails caught fire Sunday afternoon, bringing dozens of firefighters from Bladen and neighboring counties and three ladder trucks. The quickness of the call to 911 and response of first responders is credited with stopped a devastating fire from being much worse, including possibly spreading to destroy much of the north side of the 100 block of West Broad Street.
Yvonne Ngo said she has owned the building at 112 West Broad since 2006. She owned and operated the nail salon business before selling to Dawn Tran, who just signed a five-year lease.
Ngo and Tran each indicated there is uncertainty of what is next for the popular downtown spot.
“This has been nerve breaking,” Ngo said. “I live an hour-and-a-half away. I have been terrified. I had a breakdown for two days.”
The Elizabethtown Fire Department said the fire was caused by an electrical issue. A report says it originated in the ceiling and floor assembly and the crawl space between floors.
Nobody was injured in the fire that needed two hours and 20 minutes to contain. The estimated property loss is $200,000 and the contents approximately $100,000; an exact amount will not be determined until the insurance company makes their investigation.
Ngo said she has now recovered from the shock of the situation and is in process of working with her insurance company.
“I had been there so many years, and then I sold the business,” she said. “I have had a lot of memories in that building. The situation is bad, but with the COVID-19 shutdown, it’s been a blessing that they were closed.”
The week before the fire, Gov. Roy Cooper had ordered a number of businesses to close as the coronavirus pandemic spread. Nail salons were among that group, and the last day of business was Wednesday before the fire.
No one was in the building when fire broke out.
“Dawn Tran is the renter, and she had just signed a lease for another five years,” Ngo said. “I may lose my tenant.”
The Fire Department told Ngo that fire damage was extensive in the back of the building, and she said she hasn’t been able to gather the courage and be “brave enough” to go see the extent yet.
Ngo said her nephew has been inside. He told her it was heart-breaking for him to see since he grew up in the nail salon.
Tran said she has been sad.
“I’m sad to look at it and there’s not much I can do,” she said. “It’s going to be a while before we are up and moving again.”
Tran said she doesn’t know what the next step will be, particularly since the business had been closed by the governor.
“This has been overwhelming for me, and hard for them to make any decision,” she said. “But I would love to keep up with the clients.”
She said she is waiting for the executive order to be lifted.
“But I don’t know where I will go to do that,” she said.
Structural concerns were a part of what made the fire difficult to suppress.
“There had been multiple repairs on the roof, which had made getting it under control more difficult,” said Deputy Chief Anthony Norris of the Elizabethtown Fire Department.
Norris said otherwise it was relatively normal, and there were no concerns with the chemicals or anything inside. Because of the way the building was partitioned, the report reads that they had to work on a multi-side attack to get everything contained, and there were concerns of a backdraft.
“We entered… and made it 10 feet and could not see any fire via sight or thermal,” Capt. Chad Sholar wrote in the narrative. He was among the first firefighters on the scene within four minutes of the dispatch at 2:09 p.m.
Teams had to go in and out multiple times to get more air tanks.
Concerns listed in the report include the internal arrangement of the partitions, difficulty to ventilate, and the building construction and design.
Crews from more than three dozen departments in Bladen, Sampson, Robeson and Columbus counties responded quickly to the fire Sunday afternoon.
C.A. Nails, at 112 W. Broad St. in Elizabethtown, had damage to both floors on Sunday.
Firefighters from Dublin and Clarkton work Sunday to contain a fire at CA Nails in Elizabethtown.