A member of the Pavilion Fire Department who is assigned to fire police was driving near his residence on Pavilion Center Road this morning when he spotted a fire in a neighbor's garage at 10240 Pavilion Center Raod.
He immediately called in the fire but there were already huge plumes of black smoke pouring from the structure.
By the time the first fire units arrived, the garage was fully involved.
Chief Dewey Murdock said that despite it being a weekday on a holiday week, fire companies in Pavilion and mutual aid companies from Genesee, Livingston and Wyoming counties, were able to assemble crews quickly and arrive on scene shortly after the fire was reported.
That wasn't enough, however, to save the two-story garage built in the 1970s from total destruction.
The homeowner, Wayne Palmer, used the garage to restore old cars and a couple of cars were pulled out of the garage at some point.
No firefighters were injured fighting the blaze.
Multiple tankers were needed to provide water for the fire but there was never a water flow issue, Murdock said, because of sufficient crew members for the tankers, plenty of tankers on scene, and the proximity of Oatka Creek.
Murdock said the cause of the fire is under investigation but it may have started with a fuel oil burner.
