Holy Crap. Hobart loses a bit of its CBD.

[weemadando]

Only just saw this on the news before. Wonder how badly the surrounding buildings have been effected.

Fire at Hobart's Myer building contained

Posted 1 hour 50 minutes ago
Updated 1 hour 38 minutes ago
The Myer store fire started between the building's first and second floors.

The Myer store fire started between the building's first and second floors. (AAP Image: Geoffrey Lea)

* Map: Hobart 7000

The Tasmania Fire Service says the blaze in Hobart's Myer store is now contained.

The building's roof collapsed earlier this evening. The fire started late this afternoon, between the building's first and second floors.

The building was evacuated and no one was hurt. There has been smoke and water damage to surrounding buildings.

Tasmania fire service's media liaison officer, Chris Tomes, says all the service's southern crews are at the scene.

Mr Tomes says the crowds of people converging on the area are putting themselves in danger, and is asking people to steer clear of the city centre.

He says the Myer building is highly unstable and in danger of collapsing completely.

"It's a pretty precarious situation down there at this particular point in time," he said.

"The building roof did actually collapse some time ago and of course there's a very real danger of further structural collapse within that building."

Tags: fires, hobart-7000

[Phantasee]

What's a CBD?

[Masami von Weizegger]

What's a CBD?

"Central Business District".

[Archon]

What's a CBD?

We call them Downtown. Where all the people are.

[SilverWingedSeraph]

Only just saw this on the news before. Wonder how badly the surrounding buildings have been effected.

My best friend was there, and from what he told me, the surrounding damage is pretty severe, but I'm not entirely sure. He does have a habit to exaggerate sometimes. I'm going to head into Hobart later today or perhaps tomorrow, to check it out for myself.

[weemadando]

The footage I saw was pretty insane. With the flames easily clearing in height all the other buildings in the CBD.

[tim31]

We live up in WH, practically Mt. Stuart, and my three year old daughter, god bless her, dragged all the patio furniture off the balcony crying because she feared the flames would reach us.

It looked bloody huge from up there.

[weemadando]

Well, clearly the Myer building itself is just plain gone - what do people think the chances are of the Cat and Fiddle arcade reopening with the extensive structural damage that's apparently taken place?

[The_Saint]

Myer's gone.. the fire was contained to just the Myer Liverpool St side and not thw whole block. The adjacent businesses may or may not be demolished for safety... Cat and Fiddle Arcade itself may reopen pending an engineering review and a major clearup.




Apparently there had been initial talks by the owners of Myer, the Cat & Fiddle Arcade and the council on a redevelopment of most of the block... Looks like that's going to get pushed through fast now.


Pity the fire was on the side of the building with the >100 year old facade that had to be demolished for safety.