The Fire Department has released results from its “exhaustive three week investigation” of the Grand Street fire. According to the fire marshal, an overheated electrical junction box caused the April 11th fire that tore through four buildings and displaced more than 300 residents. Here are the details from the Fire Department’s press release:
Marshals said the metal junction box, which connected the electrical cables that fed power to the building, was fixed into the rear of the first floor at 283 Grand Street, in what appeared to be the storage area of a 99-cent store there… Sparks or heat from the box itself started the fire. Following multiple interviews and a painstaking forensic examination of the site that included study of burn patterns at the scene, Marshals traced the fire’s origin to the roughly three-inch junction box. Marshals began to focus upon the box after noticing melted copper wire feeding out of it. Copper wire typically only melts because of a problem, such as a short, within the box and not as the result of an external flame.
