WHEELING, W.Va. — More details are coming out about a fire that destroyed the former State Fair Exhibition Hall on Wheeling Island.
A second-alarm fire raged through the building on New Year’s Eve for several hours and now Wheeling Fire officials are saying it could have begun because of electrical issues.
Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliott appeared on Thursday’s MetroNews ‘Talkline’ and said he spoke with Wheeling Fire Chief Larry Helms recently about what they have seen.
“The building was used exclusively for storage so the cameras were not the most modern,” Elliott said. “They (Wheeling FD) can’t tell exactly but they think they have seen arcing in some of the electrical circuits that might have caused it.
“They believe the fire was burning for sometime before it was visible and someone called it in.”
Videos of the fire began surfacing on social media around 6:00 p.m. by people at Wheeling Island Casino, which sits adjacent to the building. The building had currently been used as storage by the casino.
First responders with the Wheeling FD had been fighting flames there from around 6:30 p.m. until close to midnight, as the massive building has been ruled a total loss.
Elliott said when he first heard about the fire, he looked out of his downtown window across the river and was stunned. Wheeling FD said that flames could be seen for miles.
“I looked out of my window and it was a major fire,” Elliott said. “It was very horrifying to see, any structure in your city on fire like that.
“Especially something that was a nice, historic building.”
What’s left of the former Expo Hall on Wheeling Island: pic.twitter.com/FV5juywnwD
— Philip Stahl (@PhilipStahlPIO) January 1, 2020
The Exhibition Hall was built in 1924 and used as part of the West Virginia State Fair until much of the fairgrounds was lost in the 1936 Flood, according to records.
Before being used for storage, the building had been a skating rink up until the early 2000s.
Elliott said he had recently been in conversations with casino officials about ideas for rehabbing it. He said the building would have qualified for state and federal tax credits.
Even with the historic building burning to the ground, Elliott said there is a saving grace.
“No one was in the building, no one was injured,” Elliott said. “All of our first responders were OK. The building sits isolated on the southern tip of Wheeling Island with no other buildings surrounding it so it wasn’t a threat to spread to any other structure.”
The official cause of the fire has not been determined yet.