Fire Destroys Complex Housing Wright Brothers Plane Factory
The renowned Wright brothers, Wilbur & Orville Wright, created history in 1903 with their first power plane flights near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The historic building caught fire on Sunday, and the authorities took immediate action to preserve the place. As per the authorities, “an early morning fire damaged a commercial building complex housing a former airplane factory founded by the Wright Brothers in Ohio on Sunday.”
The event occurred on 26th March; the Dayton fire crew visited the commercial building complex at 2:30 a.m. and witnessed an uncontrollable fire. The crew members used hoses to stop the flames and aerial ladders from pouring water into openings in the roof.
As per The Dayton Daily News reports, crews were at the scene nearly 12 hours after the fire was reported. There have been no injuries or human loss observed till now.
The factory is filled with Black smoke from multiple hangar buildings to historic Wright Brothers airplane factory hangars. The flames could be seen on the backside of the hangars, as per the paper report.
Capt. Brad French with the Dayton Fire Department addressed that the Wright Brothers structure is the first aircraft manufacturing facility listed on the National Historic Register. In a Facebook post by Mackensie Wittmer, executive director of the NAHA, “deeply saddened by the fire that damaged our historic Wright Company airplane factory,”
As per the National Aviation Heritage Area, The Wright brothers formed the Wright Company in November 1909, which produced about 120 airplanes in 13 different models. It reported that the plane production buildings were constructed in 1910 and 1911. The NAHA group has worked to keep the factory safe and restore it as a site of the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park. The two hangars were placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2019. The city commissioners authorized over $1.4 million to clean up the Wright Factory a year ago.
No conclusion yet on the cause of the incident, and no estimate of the damage has been disclosed yet.
