By james art The historic Harris Building in downtown San Bernardino caught fire shortly after midnight Thursday, Oct. 24, the second time the building has caught fire in recent months.
San Bernardino County Fire Department personnel arrived to find fire coming from the roof of the four-story clapboard building at 300 N. E St., according to the fire agency’s Facebook post.
Witnesses outside the building told the fire department that there were people inside. A woman was found in an elevator shaft in the basement of the building. She was asleep when the fire started, according to San Bernardino County Fire Department spokesman Eric Sherwin. She was escorted to safety without injury.
Damage to the building from a fire in July created obstacles for crew members, so they called in additional help. A total of 70 firefighters arrived on the scene and brought the blaze under control two hours after the initial crew arrived, according to the county fire agency.
The historic building was home to Harris’s Department Store, which opened in 1927. Philip and Herman Harris, two of three brothers involved in the business, opened the building to the public as a dry goods business in 1905.
In 1947, the store acquired the first escalator in the Inland Empire, originally called the “motor staircase.”
It closed in 1999, five years after Norton Air Force Base closed.
Earlier this year, the 270,000-square-foot building was donated to the city.
The cause of the fire remains unknown but is under investigation, although it appears to be human-caused, according to Sherwin.
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