By CRAIG FREILICH
North Country Now

POTSDAM -- State fire investigators confirm the blaze that heavily damaged an apartment block early Jan. 26 was an accident caused by a failed bathroom exhaust fan.

“Investigators determined that the fire started in the bathroom ceiling of one of the apartments when an exhaust fan failed,” wrote Colin Brennan, a spokesman for the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services.

“The cause was classified as accidental,” Brennan said in his email.

That coincides with what Potsdam Assistant Fire Chief Mark Bradish saw at the scene at Lawrence Avenue Apartments that morning.

“That is definitely in accord with what I saw,” Bradish said. The origin of the fire was “up in that area of the ceiling fan in the bathroom” of the apartment at the center of the fire in Building F that resulted in evacuation of 49 people and the condemnation of the building. And that is what the occupants of that apartment said they saw.

The blaze resulted in heavy fire damage to the center of Building F and water and smoke damage elsewhere.

“I called the state for an investigation because of the size of the building and the amount of monetary damages,” which were evidently going to be large, Bradish said.

“It’s standard procedure,” he said. “When it’s a big loss, the state will handle it.”