Four or five people were interviewed Saturday in connection with the Wiard Plow fire, which police are calling "suspicious," but stressing there is yet no direct evidence that the fire was set intentionally.
"We don't know if anybody was involved," said Det. Kevin Czora. "Again, it hasn't been ruled accidental and it hasn't been ruled intentional."
There is no evidence, according to a Batavia Police news release this afternoon, that the large inferno of Saturday night was the result of lingering embers from a fire earlier Saturday at the same location.
Fire officials stress that the location was checked by several fire personnel after the fire, and a fire investigator even returned to the scene an hour after the first fire was extinguished to continue his investigation. He saw nothing to suggest there was anything left smoldering.
Non-department witnesses were also in the building after the first fire and saw nothing to suggest the fire wasn't anything but completely extinguished.
The building was without electrical power, so a short or other electrical problem has been ruled out as a cause of the fire.
A reader of The Batavian reported seeing two youths running from the scene at the start of the second fire.
There have been no arrests in the case and Czora said that right now the police are just talking with individuals about what they may know or what they saw. None of the subjects are considered suspects at this time.
"We're continuing to do interviews and, where they may lead or not lead, we'll just have to wait and see," Czora said.
Lt. James Steinbrenner is continuing his investigation for the fire department. It will be up to him to determine the cause and origin of the fire. He was unavailable for comment this afternoon.
Earlier, Steinbrenner told The Batavian that it was unclear if the first fire was set intentionally or accidentally. There was evidence of casual use of fire in the building (such as four small birthday candles laying down with the burned ends hanging off a table in a room adjacent to where the fire started). The fire did not fit the profile of arson, Steinbrenner noted, because it occurred during the day and there was no accelerant used to fuel the fire.
The first fire, which was reported about 1:40 p.m., was a small fire contained to an abandoned office filled with reams and reams of old files.
