By Jerry Wofford & Jarrel Wade
The Tulsa World
TULSA, Okla. — The upper floor of the historic Bruce Goff-designed Tulsa Club building was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived early Friday, and an additional blaze was burning on the balcony of a lower level.
"We came in on the first floor and hit every floor ... and worked our way up," said Tim Smallwood, public information officer for the Tulsa Fire Department.
"Not knowing what was inside or what we were looking for, we took every precaution," he added.
District Chief Eddie Bell said later Friday that "once you get a fire this size, it's dangerous."
Despite the precautions, two firefighters had to be hospitalized.
One firefighter had sprained an ankle, and both suffered from apparent heat exhaustion, Smallwood said.
Both were released from the hospital Friday morning, he said.
Bell said the building's structure appears stable, but heat from a serious fire like Friday's causes "concrete spalling," which is the term for degradation of supports when concrete flakes off.
The nine-story, 95,000-square-foot building at Fifth Street and Cincinnati Avenue was opened in 1927 to provide facilities for the Tulsa Club and the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce.
It has been vacant since 1994.
Investigators began looking for the cause of the fire once the sun rose, Bell said.
They had not determined the cause by late Friday, but the boarded-up building has had several smaller fires recently that were started by transients, he noted.
Smallwood said charring along the building's lower levels appeared to be from previous fires.
Investigators believe that the fire started in the ballroom on the top floor, and they plan to go through the building again Saturday morning, Smallwood said.
The blaze was reported around 2:30 a.m., and Fire Department officials had sounded a third alarm for more firefighters by 2:50 a.m., Smallwood said.
By 3:25 a.m., most of the flames had been extinguished, and Smallwood said the fire was declared under control about 3:40 a.m.
Flames had been visible from the ballroom windows and from a lower level, as well.
Smallwood said the blaze was mostly contained to the ballroom - which was gutted - and did not spread to other buildings.
He added that it appeared that debris from the fire above ignited a couch on a balcony at the front of the building's lower level.
Just Wednesday a Tulsa County judge had ruled in favor of the city of Tulsa in a nuisance-abatement action regarding the Tulsa Club building.
District Judge Deborah Shallcross rejected a request by C.J. Morony of California, the building's owner, to vacate a $331,815 default judgment awarded to the city in October 2008 after Morony did not respond to the city's nuisance abatement lawsuit in Tulsa County District Court.
City officials have struggled for years in efforts to get Morony to address code violations at the vacant building.
In December 2008, the city filed a foreclosure lawsuit against Morony. That case is unresolved.
The Tulsa World recently reported that Morony had found a buyer for the historic structure, but city officials said the deal did not put to rest the litigation between the city and the owner regarding code violations.
Jeffrey Scott of Scott Realty Co. in Tulsa said Sept. 29 that he had agreed to pay $1.1 million to Morony for the building.
Scott said he did not intend to demolish the structure, according to a World report.
Copyright 2010 The Tulsa World 
