Fire damages AMVETS building

A fire at the Bloomington AMVETS headquarters off Airport Road damaged one building and destroyed the other Tuesday around 3:30 p.m.

“It’s been a rough couple of days, but this is just a bump in the road,” said Dawn Bush, a 10 year member of the AMVETS organization.

Bush was at the bar in the AMVETS building with her mother and fellow member, Diana Hawkins, when the fire first started.

“Matt James came running in the bar and told all us there was a fire,” Bush said.

Bush said that she immediately grabbed a fire extinguisher from the kitchen area thinking it was a small trash fire from someone’s lit cigarette as James called 911.

Bush ran outside to assess the situation and attempt to put the fire out, but realized it was more than she could handle.

“I saw the smoke and stepped back for a minute to look at the roof of the building when the door blew open and I could see the fire raging,” she said.

That’s when she, too, ran back inside to help her mother collect their things and leave. Bush helped her mother get outside as quickly as she could and immediately told other members to start moving their cars away from the building.

After that they just waited.

Firefighters from six different departments came and worked to extinguish the fire Tuesday afternoon. The fire started in the bingo hall and eventually spread to the bar.

“Even after all the fires were out, we were still there,” Bush said.

She said that they held a meeting Wednesday to discuss what could and could not be salvaged.

“It was very upbeat,” Bush said. “We had already set up a little bar for members to buy beers.”

The Bloomington AMVETS organization is discussing rebuilding the bingo hall, which was only damaged. The bar where Bush sat when the fire first started was destroyed.

Though the fire destroyed the smaller building with the car and heavily damaged the larger bingo hall, the smoking area was untouched and everyone escaped without injury.

“We will come back bigger and stronger,” Bush said.