Pardon me for the news article.
A fire broke out at the former Paul A. Dever State School campus in Taunton on Sunday night.
The Taunton Fire Department responded to the fire at 10:40 p.m., battled it for about five hours and remained at the scene until early Monday afternoon to put the blaze out completely.
No one was inside the building at the time of the fire and no firefighters were injured battling the blaze, said Taunton Fire Deputy Chief Mike Silvia.
Silvia said that he is doubtful the Fire Department will discover the cause of the fire or determine where it started because when firefighters arrived the building was fully engulfed in flames.
“On arrival, the building was fully involved,” Silvia said.
However, Silvia said he believes someone was in the building, leading to the blaze.
“Someone had to be in there to start the fire,” Silvia said. “Whether accidentally or intentionally, we’ll never know unless someone comes forward, because the fire on arrival had a good head start.”
Silvia said there have been police reports about homeless people sleeping at the property, which is now owned by the city and is set to become part of the nearby Myles Standish Industrial Park as it expands in the future. Silvia also said there have been thieves stripping copper and other material from the building.
Silvia said earlier on Sunday night police were chasing someone who was reportedly stealing copper from the Dever campus.
Taunton Police Sgt. Richard Carreiro confirmed around 9 p.m. on Sunday a security guard at the Dever property reported that someone was heard moving material out of the Fenton building, which was unsecured. But police checked the building and no one was inside.
Carreiro said the investigating officer was Bob McDonald, who didn’t immediately respond to a message requesting comment on Monday.
Since the state school for the mentally disabled was fully closed in 2002, it has been the target of arson.
A group of teens was charged with setting fires to an abandoned residential building at Dever on Jan. 2, 2009.
A building was completely destroyed by a suspicious fire that broke out on Nov. 27, 2009.
-- What this news article didn't mention was that the Prep Shop which burned to the ground in the fire the other night was one of the historic buildings on the Dever campus. Built before the State School campus, it was one of the few remaining buildings from
Camp Myles Standish, a former WWII military base (and canditate for the
United Nations) which held German POW's and was a departure place for over 1,000,000 US and allied soldiers during the war. During the 1950's is when the State School buildings were built and the others were razed. Only a few of the originals were kept, the Prep Shop
was one of them.
Without digging through my terrible un-edited shots from Dever, because I never edit or even look through 90% of my shots from this place here are my only edited Prep Shop pictures.
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The crews stayed until Monday afternoon, I arrived soon after they left.
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