Fire at Moore's Lumber (Ayer, MA)

Moore's lumber yard in Ayer MA has had a major fire. Moore's is a customer right on the Fitchburg main, by Guilford's Hill Yard and the MBTA stop. I have not yet seen the damage.

JD

This image swiped from Google Maps has the burned out buildings outlined in green. All of those buildings are total losses with only metal girders from the larger, darker roofed building really remaining. You can see the Ayer CR platform just to the right as well as the Ayer tower. When I passed by on the #431 CR you could feel the heat from the fire through the windows of the train, but at that time (only about 5 minutes after the fire was called in) it looked like only one of the connected buildings was on fire. I know that CR service was suspended for about an hour so they could get fire crews up in behind. Not sure what the heat might have done to the little siding that runs next to that building set, but it seems like it's only used to temporarily dump cars while switching anyways.

When they work the siding, they tend to say they are cars "for Moore's", so I don't think they dump them there. I hope they can rebuild!

Moores got very few railcars on average, but when they did, they were put on the siding on the opposite side of where the fire was. There was no siding for Moores on the fire side of the Fitchburg main tracks.

The fire caused delays for AYMO as well because of all the people standing on the wye in Ayer. Apparently some of these genius trespassers thing that because there is a fire they are allowed to stand on train tracks to take pictures and stare.

Yup... that's about right...

So it sounds like the fire was on the street side of the tracks?

NellsChoo wrote:Yup... that's about right...

So it sounds like the fire was on the street side of the tracks?

Yes. Right next to the Mobil station and the Ayer Tower.

We checked out the damage yesterday, and the damage is FAR less than expected! Providing the buildings across the tracks are also Moore's, it appears only one building burned down. The main store front looks fine. So unless there is water damage, it appears it should be easy to stay in business.

The building, though, was right next to the gas station and Ayer tower. Not sure if there was any heat or water damage to those buildings.

JD

NellsChoo wrote:We checked out the damage yesterday, and the damage is FAR less than expected! Providing the buildings across the tracks are also Moore's, it appears only one building burned down. The main store front looks fine. So unless there is water damage, it appears it should be easy to stay in business.

The building, though, was right next to the gas station and Ayer tower. Not sure if there was any heat or water damage to those buildings.

JD

The buildings across the tracks are Moores. That is their main lumber yard. And no, they siffered no damage.

The damage may not look like much because everything was incenerated. There were a few storage buildings and they, along with everything in them is gone. The main building if you look again had all the siding melted on the wall facing the fire location. There was never a question of them staying business. They just lost alot of inventory plus the storage buldings that housed it.

I took another look Sunday, and from a different vantage. It was more obvious... there was this big void and sunlight!

The fire was very close to the gas station and tower! There is also one burned trailer... wow...

But now I am wondering if Moore's is a Guilford customer. The siding that I thought was theirs appears to be another company with some metal silos. There are initials on them, and I think I am wrong now.

One thing that I just read is that now there are two suspects in the blaze. A 12 and 15 year old... read below:

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/14 ... etail.html

NellsChoo wrote:I took another look Sunday, and from a different vantage. It was more obvious... there was this big void and sunlight!

The fire was very close to the gas station and tower! There is also one burned trailer... wow...

But now I am wondering if Moore's is a Guilford customer. The siding that I thought was theirs appears to be another company with some metal silos. There are initials on them, and I think I am wrong now.

One thing that I just read is that now there are two suspects in the blaze. A 12 and 15 year old... read below:

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/14 ... etail.html

That trailer belonged to Guilford. It was filled with old paperwork from customers.

And Moores was (is) still a Guilford customer. They don't get many, but they still get cars on occasion. The siding your seeing is a plastic company that gets a few cars a week.