
{"id":9585,"date":"2010-03-25T15:41:07","date_gmt":"2010-03-25T23:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=9585"},"modified":"2010-03-25T17:54:34","modified_gmt":"2010-03-26T01:54:34","slug":"pittsboro-courthouse-destroyed-in-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/03\/25\/pittsboro-courthouse-destroyed-in-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsboro courthouse destroyed in fire"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Chatham County Courthouse, built in 1881 and since Pittsboro&#8217;s most distinguished landmark, caught fire around 4:15 p.m. Thursday afternoon, and by 6 p.m. was a smoldering skeleton of its former self. The cause of the fire is at yet unknown, but the exterior of the building had been undergoing renovations, surrounded with scaffolding, and construction was underway at the time of the fire. No one was reportedly injured.<\/p>\n<p>For Pittsboro, said Mayor Randy Voller, &#8220;this is the disaster of disasters. Even Sherman didn&#8217;t do this.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As news helicopters hovered overhead and sirens wailed, a thin blanket of smoke, redolent of a massive campfire, wafted up Hillsboro Street, and locals gathered and watched and collectively shook their heads in mourning. Damage appeared fairly exhaustive.  \u00e2\u20ac\u201d <em>Taylor Sisk<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Update \u00e2\u20ac\u201d This from Chatham County officials this evening:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Update on Chatham County Courthouse Fire<\/p>\n<p>PITTSBORO\u00e2\u20ac\u201dAs of 9:15 pm, firefighters had made progress in controlling the fire in the Historic County Courthouse, but hot spots were still popping up periodically.  The clock tower and third floor are severely damaged, with other areas sustaining major water and smoke damage.<\/p>\n<p>Pittsboro Fire Chief Darryl Griffin stated in a news briefing at 8:30 pm that the fire appears to have started in the attic. Chatham County Fire Marshal Thomas Bender will work with the SBI to investigate the fire over the next few weeks.<\/p>\n<p>John Poteat with the Town of Pittsboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Public Utilities reported that the water supply is fine and that residences should not have major problems with water this evening.<\/p>\n<p>With the amount of smoke substantially reduced over the past two hours, Chatham County did not have residents come to the temporary shelter by 8 pm so it was closed shortly thereafter.  If residents do have trouble breathing for any reason, they should call 911 for assistance.<\/p>\n<p>The traffic circle around the courthouse will be closed tomorrow, Friday, March 25, so residents and businesses should find other routes to get around Pittsboro. School buses also may have to be rerouted as well. The public should avoid walking around the courthouse for safety reasons.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Chatham County Courthouse, built in 1881 and since Pittsboro&#8217;s most distinguished landmark, caught fire around 4:15 p.m. Thursday afternoon, and by 6 p.m. was a smoldering skeleton of its former self. The cause of the fire is at yet unknown, but the exterior of the building had been undergoing renovations, surrounded with scaffolding, and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9585"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9588,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9585\/revisions\/9588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}