We just had a major fire in an historic building that is under re-builting for commercial and museum use.

Many readers of this site will be working with old buildings that have major amounts of wood structure. Be they stations, depots, roundhouses or whatever, be cereful!

Watch those contractors; better yet require a two hour fire watch after all hot work is completed and have fire insurance written into the construction contract.

Our fire did not kill the project, but it delayed it for 9 months and the fire could have been a lot worse, except for the very fine SFFD.

ted_miles@NPS.gov