- Date
- 2008-10-15
- Kind
- Disaster
- Eras
- Modern era
- Concepts
- disasterfireemergency-managementcommunity
- Within
- Beaver Island
Summary
On October 15, 2008, fire destroyed Rich Gillespie Enterprises’ warehouse near Four Corners. The building was reported as approximately 80 by 68 feet and a total loss. Beaver Island volunteer firefighters concentrated on containing the fire and protecting a nearby propane tank; the Beacon later reported plans to rebuild.
Evidence limits
The newspaper and first-person forum account agree on the destruction and the firefighters’ protective effort, but neither source in this record establishes the fire’s cause, an official damage assessment, or a precisely mapped parcel. The forum post is valuable contemporaneous testimony but is not treated as an incident report or substitute for fire-department records.
Sources
- Beaver Beacon, November 2008, “Rich Gillespie’s Shop Burns to the Ground”.Reports the destruction of the Rich Gillespie Enterprises complex after a fire near Four Corners, the building’s total loss, the proximity of the propane tank, and plans to rebuild. It does not state the cause of the fire. No public copy of this file is known; the archive holds one and can provide it on request.data1 · beaver-island-archive · beaver_beacon · 2008-11_Beaver-Beacon
- The held issue scan confirms the fire report and accompanying photographs.data1 · beaver-island-archive · scans · beaver_beacon · issues · 2008-11_Beaver-Beacon
- The anniversary post identifies October 15, 2008, as the date Richie's Shop burned to the ground. It is a brief retrospective and adds no independent cause, damage assessment, or fire-department detail; the held Beacon and next-day forum account remain the stronger incident sources.forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 01 · t001977
- First-person account posted the day after the fire describes an approximately 80-by-68-foot warehouse as a total loss and credits volunteer firefighters with holding the east wall to deflect heat from a 30,000-gallon propane tank less than 75 feet away. It is participant testimony about the incident and response, corroborated by the later newspaper report.forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 01 · t001293
Added 7 August 2026. Recent changes
Cite this article
Beaver Island Archive, “Fire destroys Rich Gillespie’s warehouse near Four Corners on October 15, 2008”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/events/beaver-island-rich-gillespie-warehouse-fire-2008/, accessed [date], citing Beaver Beacon, November 2008, “Rich Gillespie’s Shop Burns to the Ground”. (and 3 further sources listed on the page).
Last revised 2026-08-07. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.
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