Suspiciously timed Main St. fire not arson

On Christmas, some Grinch chucked rocks through the windows of a building near 39th and Main. Two days later, the building suffered $20,000 damage in a fire.

The vandalism had led to rumors the blaze began with a Molotov cocktail. But the Kansas City fire department today says a defective water cooler was the cause. The fire started just before midnight on December 27.

The Main Street Corridor Redevelopment Corporation & Community Improvement District, a non-profit known informally as MainCor, uses the portion of the building that caught fire. The space serves as a base for MainCor’s red-jacket wearing maintenance workers and patrol officers. MainCor head Diane Burnette says Brent Lambi, the building’s owner, made the space available at no charge.