Picking up the Pieces After Downtown Blaze

Two of the three business owners that were directly affected by Sunday's three-alarm fire on Daniel Street say they escaped with minimal damage and plan on reopening much sooner than they originally expected.

But The Eye Glass Shop, which has been a fixture in the city since 1943, may not be as fortunate after it sustained the heaviest water and smoke damage from the blaze that gutted the second and third floor apartments above it as well as the Clip Joint Barbers and the Banks Gallery.

"We're hoping to be back and open tomorrow," said Sandy Cole, owner of the Clip Joint Barbers, which had relocated from its former space on Pleasant Street in March.

Cole said on Monday that she was stunned when she first learned about the fire on Sunday that Portsmouth fire officials say caused more than $750,000 in damage. "I was shocked. I couldn't believe we had just moved there," she said.

Jamie Lafleur, owner of the Banks Gallery next door to Clip Joint Barbers, said he was also very lucky that the 30 or so paintings inside his gallery were not damaged. He said they are dealing with some odor and water damage in the basement, but the gallery itself escaped serious damage. He was hoping to reopen the gallery in two weeks.

Lafleur said the gallery was showing abstract paintings from the 1950s and 1960s from California and Chicago and he was in the process of contacting the consignors of the art work to let them know the paintings were intact.

Like his fellow business owners, Lafleur said he was grateful that none of the tenants and firefighters suffered any serious injuries in the blaze. Fire officials were on scene Monday morning continuing their investigation into the fire's cause.

Insurcomm, Inc., of Portsmouth was also on the scene doing the initial fire clean up and damage assessment.

Several apartments are in the same building as The Eye Glass Shop; those units were deemed uninhabitable Monday, according to Fire Chief Steve Achilles.

Ronny Martenson, a senior project manager with Insurcomm, Inc., said his company worked on the fire clean up from the State Street fire in March and the fire that damaged the luxury condominiums at 135 Bow St. last winter.

He said his crew members do all they can to remediate the immediate damage to get people back into their homes and businesses as soon as possible. But he said it is already apparent "there are definitely some units that are going to be completely gutted."