Fire engulfs building south of Kalona

    A building three miles southwest of Kalona caught fire late Monday night and burned for several hours before firefighters were finally able to extinguish the flames. Kalona Fire Chief Steve Yotty said the pole building, located at 1962 140th St., was a total loss and that no property was able to be salvaged from the structure. Yotty said there were no injuries reported. 

    The building is owned by Kevin and Judy Christiansen and was the site of Kevin?s ?All-American Concrete? business. The building, which measures 60 by 90 feet, caught fire at approximately 10:30 p.m. for reasons that are unknown at the present time. After battling the blaze for several hours, the firefighters finally went home at approximately 3:45 a.m.

    Members of the Kalona Fire Department were called out to the site Tuesday morning to extinguish ?hot spots? of smoldering rubble that had remained from the night before.

    Yotty said that when the Kalona Fire Department arrived on the scene shortly after 10:30 p.m., the building was fully engulfed in flames. He said the building was completely tin and that the extreme heat caused the roof to collapse. He added that a number of flammable materials in the building such as paint and gasoline contributed to the size of the fire. Yotty said that even though the building was fully engulfed and the wind was blowing, there were no structures in the vicinity of the pole building that were in danger of also catching fire.

For the full article, see our Feb. 9 print edition.