Imperial Electric was housed in a building that was rumored to have once been part owned by Thomas Edison.
The fire was of suspicious origin, and only one of a series of fires that have seemed to be of a particular advantage to some special interests in the Akron Area. Of course, no proof is available for substantiating these rumors, so I can't really tell you what I think, except that this is an awsome picture of a fire consuming what would have been a treasured building in any other area of a "progressive" city.
Chris's pictures have been featured in the Annual Report of the Akron Fire Department, for the last few years. Unfortunately, with my retirement, it is harder to get notified when large fires occur, so as she is officially out of the loop now, the rest of her fire pictures may be on a more hap-hazard schedule. But it might allow her to have more time to adjust the pictures, to get some rather neat effects.
After you get done here, go to Chris's dot mac sites and check out what she has there.
