Kloter Farms Fire Still Under Investigation

As the investigation into what caused the fire at in Ellington, the discovery that there was a lightning strike early Wednesday morning has been made.

It has not been determined whether or not the strike caused the , but Todd Root, Director of Marketing for Kloter Farms, confirmed that there was a strike in the area of the business.

“We don’t know exactly where it struck but it struck on or around our property,” he said. “I know that’s something they are taking into consideration as they do their analysis and evaluation of the cause of the fire. But that is certainly something that was turned up that is being factored into their evaluation.”

Root said that the fire marshal, who also had assistance from the state fire marshal, has finished the onsite investigation and is moving on to the analysis and evaluation phase of the investigation.

“They go through an investigation stage where they gather as much information as they can and look at raw evidence,” Root said. “The lightning strike is one of the elements of raw evidence. Then they have to go through an analysis where put things together – put A plus B plus C. From that evaluation they’ll end up making some determinations and give a formal findings.”

Root says that he expects the formal findings to be issued in the next few weeks. He added that so far, the fire has been ruled accidental, but that no other determinations have been made.

“That’s good news,” he said of knowing it was not set deliberately and that there’s no cause to believe that it was a criminal act.

In the meantime, Kloter Farms has resumed business. The company has refashioned the large red building on its property from the outdoor sales office and corporate offices to an outdoor sales office and fine furniture showroom.

“We’ve put the furniture in and it’s open for business,” Root said.

Kloter Farms owns a building at 32 Main St. that it may also end up using as a showroom. There have been discussions with the town about this, though no final decisions have been made.

“It’s one of our several considerations,” Root said. “We basically are looking at all of our different options.”

The outdoor sales business was completely unaffected by the fire and Root said that nothing that customers have ordered in the last several weeks and months was impacted by the fire.

“At the time of the fire, we didn’t have any product in there that were customer orders,” he said. “Really everything that was in there was displays and cash-and-carry gift items and home décor.”

Root once again thanked the fire departments that responded and noted that it could have been much worse.

“I think because of the swift response by the , we were lucky that it did not spread to any of the perimeter buildings,” he said. “Many of those buildings are buildings that we use as display for custom buildings that people are ordering. Knowing that those buildings are fine makes a huge difference to us. It could have been (much worse). Everything here is built of wood. I mean think of it; the whole place is just wood on wood on wood.”

Root and the rest of the people at Kloter Farms are ready to move on.

“I’m looking forward to hearing what the findings are so that we can actually move forward,” he said. “It will be nice to put this behind us and look forward to our rebuild. We’re really excited to make it happen.”

Kloter Farms has posted photos and videos of the fire on its web site. To view those, click here.