Posted at: 11/28/2009 12:45 PM | WHEC.com
Updated at: 11/28/2009 11:40 PM
By: Linzi Sheldon

Family Dollar fire ruled arson

The Family Dollar fire that occurred on November 23rd has been ruled arson.

In a press conference today, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms offered a $5,000 reward for any information that leads to an arrest in this case.

For the past week, the plaza has been considered a crime scene. The ATF is finished with its investigation and now fire officials are turning this property back over to the plaza's owners.

Fire chief John Caufield says now they know where in this building the fire started.

"We've painstakingly created the environment that we believe existed just prior to that fire and we've determined that the fire was intentionally set."

But fire officials are not releasing information about how this gigantic fire began.

We know it burned for more than seven hours and flames reached up to 30 feet high. Fire officials told us Saturday that the Family Dollar did not have a sprinkler system, but was not required to have one according to building code.

Three firefighters had minor injuries from fighting this blaze and 16 ATF agents responded to the scene, including eight local agents. they believe the damage is more than one-million dollars.

One ATF agent said an investigation like this one is similar to piecing together a puzzle.

"We really don't know what it looked like beforehand," said Chris Porreca from the ATF National Response Team. "We may have the benefit of some pictures or something, but we have to start by interviewing people and talking to them, and going through the debris that's left...and then beginning to reconstruct what that scene was and how the fire may have originated."

City fire officials say that at this point they have not found a link between this fire and another fire at a Family Dollar on North Goodman Street.

That also happened on Monday at about they same time. This is a separate, but ongoing investigation.

If you have any information, you are asked to call Rochester area crime stoppers at 423-9300.

For more Rochester NY news, log onto www.whec.com.