The GU Market building, after firefighters pulled back from the structure for safety reasons, burst into spectacular flames reaching 100 feet above the structure. At the height of the fire, the heat from the burning building was so intense it could be felt on bare skin by onlookers standing on the sidewalk across the parking lot.

The GU Market on Route 9D in Cold Spring burned to the ground on Wednesday, February 6, shocking a community nearly dependent on the retailer for its daily food needs. No one was hurt in the blaze.

The Putnam County Fire Investigation Team has ruled out arson, deeming the fire unsuspicious. The property’s insurers are conducting a more in-depth investigation into the fire’s cause.

The supermarket’s demise ended an era of convenience for local residents, forcing shoppers to travel as far as Fishkill, Beacon, or Peekskill to fetch groceries. For some of the GU Market’s 22 employees, the store’s destruction means possible unemployment. No one will feel the effects of the supermarket’s loss more deeply than local senior citizens and residents without cars, who relied heavily on the retailer for their provisions.

The fire began shortly after 10 p.m. on Wednesday night. GU Market employee Jennifer Garrison, a Cold Spring resident, was closing the store with her coworkers when she smelled smoke. Looking for its source, she discovered that a piece of the ceiling had fallen to the floor between the first cash register and the cookie aisle. "I looked up and there were flames in the ceiling," said Garrison, whose call to 911 yielded a rapid response from Cold Spring’s volunteer firefighters.

The Cold Spring Fire Company No. 1 arrived on the scene at about 10:15 p.m. Under the command of Assistant Chief Michael Allen, firefighters searched for the blaze’s source in the smoke-filled supermarket. A thermal-imaging camera helped locate the fire, yet falling debris from the center of the store forced firefighters back. Allen then requested assistance from the Garrison and North Highlands fire departments, as well as ladder trucks from Fishkill, Beacon, and the Rombout Fire Department.

As the blaze intensified, Allen summoned yet more units to the scene, until firefighters from about a dozen departments assisted in pumping and shuttling water from the Hudson River. Water from a hydrant proved inefficient, since the hydrant also fed the supermarket’s activated sprinkler system. Firefighters routinely pump water from nearby streams, but recent drought had drained these sources, making the river the only option.

While an inferno engulfed the supermarket, with flames reaching at least 100 feet into the air, firefighters worked to keep the conflagration from spreading to neighboring storefronts in the one-story strip mall. Firewalls proved essential in saving the adjacent businesses from destruction. When flames leapt through the roof into the post office next door, a group of firefighters swiftly contained the blaze. Others removed mail from the post office and handed it over to postal employees previously called to the scene.

Structural damage to the post office remains to be assessed. The facility will remain closed indefinitely, with postal employees conducting business out of mobile units in the plaza. Robert’s Total Care Salon sustained water and smoke damage.

Firefighters left the area at about 7:30 a.m. Thursday morning, as a feeble winter sun rose over a heap of twisted metal, crushed shopping carts, and other charred remains. Crowds of onlookers had dispersed hours earlier, only to gather again later to witness the devastation in daylight hours.

More information can be found at Putnam County News & Recorder but for some pictures of the fire, click here.

Above articles and photographs courtesy of the Putnam County News & Recorder (copyright)