The Prestonsburg Fire Department joined Paintsville Fire and Rescue on the morning March 27 as they responded to a structure fire at the former location of the Black Diamond Saloon on Madison Avenue in Paintsville.
The former location of the Black Diamond Saloon saw an eventful few days between March 23 and March 27 as three individuals were charged with breaking into the structure and it subsequently caught fire approximately four days later, according to Paintsville Fire and Rescue Chief Edgar Pack, who said the two events were likely unrelated.
On March 23, Paintsville Police Department officers Tyler Cable and Justin Jackson responded to a complaint of three individuals breaking a lock off of the building and entering it. When Cable and Jackson responded, the citation said they discovered John Litton, 27, of Depot Road, Paintsville, Amber Blackburn, 35, of Triplett Street, Morehead, and Raven Dunston, 41, address unknown, inside.
According to the citations, the officers discovered a bed, clothes and blankets, as well as evidence that the trio were using methamphetamine inside the building alongside copper that had been stripped from the building in three large bundles. The citation said that Blackburn and Litton had signed their names throughout the building and dated their signatures and that Blackburn had a backpack which contained two hypodermic syringes, one of which she stated contained methamphetamine.
The trio were arrested and lodged in the Big Sandy Regional Detention Center with all three charged with third-degree burglary and first-degree criminal mischief, while Blackburn and Dunston were charged with possession of drug paraphernalia and Dunston was charged with third-degree criminal trespassing.
On the morning of March 27, the structure was reported on fire and responded to by multiple agencies from Johnson and Floyd counties. Paintsville Fire and Rescue, who requested mutual aid from the Prestonsburg Fire Department, responded to the scene and had the fire mostly under control by around 10:15 a.m. The property, located on Madison Avenue in Paintsville, was returned to the owners by approximately 1:43 p.m.
“Our biggest effort is always to try and search and rescue first,” Pack said, adding that there was no evidence of anyone inside the structure after the fire started. “It’s sort of still under investigation as far as the cause – we know the ignition point, but the exact cause is not known at this time … It’s going kind of slow as far as getting people who are willing to talk to us.
“There was electricity on the side of the fire, but the people who were squatting prior to this were in the other section,” Pack continued.
Pack said it was unlikely that the fire was related to the squatters.
“The alarm was at 9:26 a.m., and of course we got there shortly after, at around 9:29 a.m. and had heavy smoke showing and began an interior attack,” Pack said. “The building is actually split up into two parts, a warehouse and a bar-type area. The bar-type area is the area that the fire was located at … (The squatters) weren’t the cause. On the side that the fire (was on), there was no evidence of anybody squatting on that side.
“It was not related to the squatters, as far as their personal belongings or trying to keep warm or anything of that nature,” Pack said.
The Thealka Volunteer Fire Department and W.R. Castle Fire and Rescue responded voluntarily to the fire as well and helped with controlling the scene of the incident.
“The only ones that we requested mutual aid from would have been Prestonsburg; they supplied a crew with an engine and an aerial … There were also members from W.R. and Thealka, they showed up, but if you come to something like that, we will use you,” Pack said, adding that it took time to make sure the voids in the building were cleared and the fire was fully extinguished.
“We turned it back over to the landowner at (1:43 p.m.) and they boarded it up and closed it up and it looks like they did a really good job at blocking all of the entrances, so hopefully that’ll help keep anybody from getting in there,” Pack said.
With the knowledge of previous squatting in the building, Pack said one of the biggest fears was exposure to the heavy smoke and that he is thankful there weren’t any that the agencies knew of.
“It could have been much worse. The thing that we always worry about, especially when you have an older structure like that and you have as much smoke as we had when we got there initially, you have to worry about your exposures,” Pack said. “You’re trying to make an attack to protect your exposures, because you don’t know how much involvement you’ve got until you start digging. We were just thankful that we were able to save as much of that structure as we could and we didn’t have any exposures.”