The News' staff writer Emily Rose Hamby co-wrote this report

COVINGTON, Ga. — At 9:37 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 25, Covington’s fire department responded to a call on Hendricks Street. The building housing Shear Bliss caught fire, before spreading to New Shoez, Shelvie Jean and The Dude Store and Barber Shop.

Though other businesses didn’t catch fire, they were still impacted with smoke and water damage. 

Covington’s police department was first on the scene at 9:39 p.m. with Covington fire department arriving at 9:41 p.m. 

By 11:20 a.m. Saturday morning, the fire was fully extinguished. 

In an interview with The Covington News on Monday, Aug. 28, Covington fire marshal and interim fire chief Joe Doss shared the latest update. 

Doss said the investigation has been turned over to the state to avoid bias from those who responded to the scene. 

“[The state] has done the investigation. We walked an arson canine dog,” Doss said. “The dog did not respond on anything. But that being said, there was so much water and so much stuff happening. It’s a bad scene to try and investigate.” 

According to Doss, the problem with the scene revolved around the ceiling. Due to how expensive replacing a roof is, the building endured having several years of layer added to the roof whenever leaks occurred. Doss said the roof could have been anywhere from 10-15 inches thick.

“You have the ceiling inside the store that you see as a shopper,” Doss said. “Well above that in these old buildings is the actual ceiling. The fire got between the ceiling, the last ceiling, and the bottom side of that roof with no access to it. That’s why it got so hot and that’s why it did what it did and when it finally turned loose, everything collapsed and pancaked into the stores.”

Doss shared that a determination of the cause of the fire has not been reached at the time of this publication, but that a structural engineer has assessed the scene.

“This is going to be a major scene,” Doss said. “They could all look at it and go, ‘No, we’re going to tear this down.’ If they tear it down. That is a freestanding building. It has four sides to it. They will just have to be careful to the left and right as they start dropping things to make sure that those dropping don’t affect the building that’s touching it.”

There were no injuries. Streets near the block (portions of Monticello, Hendricks, Reynolds and Washington) remain closed. 

At 1:50 a.m. Saturday morning, Doss described the nature of the fire.

“In one of our buildings, a fire was located on the backside from where we’re standing,” Doss said. “Units responded. Found heavy fire in the exterior of the building that found its way interior of the building. These buildings are old. Many, many roofs, many ceilings inside. Found its way between ceiling and roof and it’s almost impossible for us to get there to get it out.”

Covington fire department received assistance from Newton, Rockdale, DeKalb, Henry, Walton counties’ fire department as well as the City of Atlanta. Approximately 50 firefighters were on the scene, Doss said. 

The Covington fire department and Newton County Fire Services worked through the morning to smother any “hot spots.” The Street Department, members of the Land Application Team and Deputy City Manager John King cleaned up debris from the street. 

On Saturday, debris from businesses with storefronts on Monticello Street began to clear out. Doss said piles of debris from some of the businesses were taken off site and kept in piles per each business to clear the scene and allow the investigator to look through the evidence.

Doss touched on the historic value of the building – which he estimated to be somewhere from 100-150 years old – and explained how its construction impacted the fire.

“The way they built [these buildings] back in the day, was you build the building, free standing, you build the next building next to that building so the walls touched,” Doss said. “So it’s fantastic the way they built it and that’s what stopped it from going to other buildings.”

Regarding the performance of all fire personnel involved, Doss was pleased and grateful.

“We ended up with 50 plus firefighters on scene. For us, that’s massive amounts of moving parts that we’re not used to,” Doss said. “But we made it work. We kept up with everybody. We knew where everybody was. People reporting in like they’re supposed to… A phenomenal job. Everybody did really, really well.”

However, the outpour of support from the community is what moved Doss.

First responders on scene were provided with a truckload of water, Powerade and Gatorade through a donation from Walmart and a citizen who delivered the drinks.

Doss said food was also provided.

“I want to tell everybody – what they saw the fire service personnel doing is what they trained for,” Doss said. “This is what we do. This is our job. But what we didn’t see that we didn’t anticipate was that outpouring from the community… The outpouring is just unreal. It really is.”

City of Covington community development director and public information officer Ken Malcom provided insight on the impact of the fire on the businesses and the community.

“This is devastating,” Malcom said. “There’ve been businesses who were doing very well for a number of years and now they’re gone. It’s four businesses that look like they’re just going to be a total loss.” 

In the last 12 months, Malcom said 690,000 different people – with a total of 2.6 million “reaches” altogether – have visited the downtown area. Though the movie and television productions that have been filmed throughout Covington have contributed to tourism, Malcom said it has also given opportunity for local businesses to thrive.

“Our merchants have been able to prosper from that and do well with having the influx of people coming in shopping and eating and just spending time in our downtown,” Malcom said. “We’ve lost a section of that.”

In efforts to help affected businesses, the City of Covington, the Downtown Development Authority and the Chamber of Commerce have worked together to establish the Small Business Resiliency Fund – which was initially offered as aid for small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.

“This would be funds that are donated from organizations, corporations, businesses, individuals and fundraising efforts,” Malcom said. “We’re hoping that anyone that wishes to do something will send their funds to this fund.”

Malcom said the city is working to create links and QR codes for easy access and to ease the process of donating through apps like Venmo and Cash App. For those looking to donate to the fund before those links are made available, Malcom said they can write a check making it out to the fund and deliver it to the Chamber.

Additionally, Malcom said T-shirts are currently being designed through Rush Tees, where proceeds will benefit the fund.

Following Friday night’s devastation, other local businesses on the Square have stepped up to the plate to support their fellow merchants – something Malcom notes as “special.”

“It’s one of the benefits of living in a small town,” Malcom said. “I think the people that live in this community are connected to somebody that’s been impacted by this personally... One thing that is so special is you’re seeing all these other businesses downtown, they’re rallying right now to take care of their own and then you got Covington, Newton County rallying to take care of them.”

Despite the devastation of the fire, Malcom said the “tight-knit” community of Covington will offer aid to those affected by the fire.

“We’ll rebuild and we’ll move forward and we’ll support these merchants that lost everything tonight the best we can,” Malcom said. “We’re a tight knit community and we’ll help them pick things back up.”