14-year-old arrested in Victory Mills Fire

A 14-year-old teen is charged in a fire that destroyed the historic Victory Mill. Sources tell NewsChannel 13’s Mark Mulholland that the fire was determined to be arson, and the investigation is still ongoing.

Firefighters responded to a large fire at the Victory Mill in Village of Victory Saturday afternoon. Crews responded to the Gates Avenue around 2:30 Saturday afternoon and found the building up in flames.

Officials said the fire took about an hour to get under control, but firefighters were on the scene for multiple hours.

The flames so large, firefighters forced to take a defensive approach.

“We’ve already made the call that nobody is going into the structure unless there was immediate life at risk. We had no reports of immediate life, when I got on scene. I was told that there was nobody in the structure at that point. It was fully involved so we took a complete defensive approach to it,” said Chief Ryan Campbell of the Victory Mills Fire Department.

“There’s been embers going as far as the eye can see. The flames have been coming. I could feel the heat just standing by that fence. You could see things collapse and you could hear things collapse as it’s been going,” said one witness.

The 230,000 square foot Victory Mill had been abandoned for about 25 years with the Village of Victory receiving a 10-million-dollar planning grant to use for demolition of the mill and to help rebuild living/recreational space on the land.

Our Zach Richter was at the scene all day and will have more details, LIVE at 11.