Steve Kopa and Chuck Kifer were driving past what had become an unfortunate yet familiar landmark at 1015 West Main St. — the charred remains of a house destroyed in a fire over a year ago — when Kopa turned to Kifer and said “we’ve got to do something about that house.”
Unbeknownst to Kopa and Kifer at the time, the property owner, Clementina Devlin, hadn’t received money from her insurance to cover the cost of tearing down the burned structure, according to Kopa.
And as Devlin was retired and on a limited fixed income, she was unable to cover the cost of tearing down the structure herself.
The house had caught fire on Sept. 3, 2020, and was completely destroyed, according to The Chronicle’s report of the incident. The Riverside Fire Authority suspected the fire began in the living room and was likely caused by discarded smoking materials or overloaded electrical cords, but due to the instability of the property, fire personnel weren’t able to fully investigate the cause of the fire.
Kopa works as a regular volunteer with the Centralia Clean Team, a group of volunteers who work to clean up parts of Centralia, and he said that work gave him a “high awareness” for areas in town that could benefit from a volunteer cleanup effort.
“When I see a big mess like that, I just want to clean it up and get it out of there,” he said.
As they drove past the burned house on Main Street, Kopa asked Kifer, his boss at Kifer Construction, about contacting the property owners and seeing if there was a way to help them get the structure taken down.
As luck would have it, Shawn Devlin, a relative of Clementina Devlin, was also working at Kifer Construction at the time — and he had already started working on securing the permits needed to tear down the structure.
From there, it was all about coordinating with the City of Centralia and various volunteers to get the structure demolished.
The City of Centralia shut down Main Street between Yew and South Cedar streets from 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Oct. 29 while volunteers worked to remove the structure. Chris Tibbits, of Tibbits Excavating, manned an excavator donated by Tyler Rental for the day of the demolition, Hunter and Terry Petrich cut down nearby cottonwood, LeMay Centralia and the City of Centralia covered the cost for three railcar containers and Katie Moore facilitated lunch delivery by Bocatta for the volunteers.
Together, they were able to completely remove the structure on Oct. 29.
“Everything went smooth and I have nothing but good things to say about everybody involved,” Kopa said.
Clementine Devlin and her kids were happy to see the burned structure go, Kopa said.
“One of the things I really appreciated and Chuck really appreciated about this project was we were helping somebody that truly needed the help and they didn’t ask for our help. We saw what was going on and moved forward on it, so it worked out pretty good I think. She (Clementine Devlin) was extremely happy,” he said.
Ultimately, Clementina Devlin bought a couple hundred dollars’ worth of fuel for the excavator, but otherwise paid no expenses toward the project, according to Kopa.
“I feel like we really helped her out because, not having any money and being on a fixed income, how was she going to pay for all this? How was she ever going to pay it back?”
Other construction companies reportedly offered to demolish the building for free if Develin handed over the deed to the property.
Clementina Devlin still lives in a detached unit on the property, and Kopa said volunteers were planning to help her do some more work on her property.
