A fire Tuesday night destroyed the Sirloin Stockade restaurant on Route 66 on the west side of Rolla, Missouri.
Rolla Fire Chief Ron Smith told the Salem News the building was a total loss. He said an official from the Missouri fire marshal’s office will investigate.
The flames created a spectacle on the south side of Interstate 44 as they engulfed the building. Seven firefighters initially arrived from Rolla Fire & Rescue and witnessed fire showing through the roof. A total of 25 firefighters ended up on scene from both Rolla Fire & Rescue as well as from the Rolla Rural Fire Protection District. […]
All employees escaped safely and no firefighters were injured. For much of the night firefighters had to battle through cold weather and a stream of freezing rain which iced over the surrounding area.
A passer-by sent photos to KY3 in Springfield, Missouri, of flames licking through the restaurant’s roof.
Here is a video of the fire:
Sirloin Stockade is a restaurant chain of about 80 locations. It was founded in 1966 in Oklahoma City. Many of the restaurants — including Rolla’s — feature a large fiberglass steer on the premises.
The Rolla site was the only Sirloin Stockade on Route 66 and was frequented by international travelers. A Sirloin Stockade exists in Carthage, Missouri, but it sits a few blocks west of Route 66.
(Hat tip to Tonya Pike; image of Sirloin Stockade fire by City of Rolla Fire & Rescue)
What can I say? Yet another commercial building going up in flames. This one – by the report – seemingly while staff were on the premises. Exactly how did the fire start, and how did it spread so rapidly? Just what sort of fire protection was there on the premises? Surely a couple of good size extinguishers and fire blankets in the kitchen area would have contained the fire? And no sprinklers? No doubt a “replica” Sirloin Stockade will not be hard to put up on the same site.
Don’t assume it started in the kitchen. By all accounts I’ve seen, it appears to have started in the roof or attic. It could have been raging well before staff noticed anything wrong.
Nothing in the Route 66 report said where the fire started. My assumption that it may have started in the kitchen area was based on the fact that most cafe/restaurant fires start where there are flames already – in the kitchen. If this one did start in the roof area, then I would suspect an electrical fault. How old was the wiring? Or did a chimney or flue from the kitchen overheat and set light to timber in the attic area? How often had any chimneys/flues been swept or had any grease removed from their interiors? What about their integrity? In the days of coal fires in the UK, umpteen blazes started in unswept chimneys, often because they were partly blocked by soot and the heat spread sideways to upper floor or roof timbers.