Jewish Community Center in Denver temporarily closes after construction fire, praises firefighters' response

Fire crews fighting Friday's construction fire near Leetsdale Drive and South Forest Street saved countless homes and businesses by keeping it contained to just the apartment complex it started in. Among those businesses is the Jewish Community Center down the road.

"It was a very scary situation," said Stephanie Herm, JCC Denver's chief operating officer.

 The JCC closed its doors shortly after the fire broke out and stayed closed through the weekend.

"We made the difficult decision to close both Saturday and Sunday because of the air quality and inside the building smelled like campfire," Herm said. "When I was on site Saturday, going to and from the car was very difficult to breathe."

Herm says she never slept Friday night, and the facilities team worked around the clock to reopen by Monday.

"Checking the air quality in the building, working with our air purifiers," Herm said. "Switching out filters and making sure that concentrated spaces are getting like as many filters and purifiers in there as possible."

New year's resolutioners with fitness goals had nowhere to go the first weekend of the year, their busiest time.

 "It's difficult, because that's what people come here for," Herm said.

Now, the air has cleared, with only a minor inconvenience compared to what could have happened.

"What we had was crews that were disciplined, that were aggressive, that saved these businesses here on the side, and those residences, those homes up on top of the hill," said Robert Murphy the division chief of operations at Denver Fire Department.

The cause of the fire is still unknown. Denver Fire Department says it's not ruling anything out at the moment, as firefighters work with a national crew to investigate.  

Herm and the JCC community are incredibly grateful. 

"We put out a communication asking people to bring in food, snacks, lotion, to show our firefighters how much we appreciate that they've been working around the clock," Herm said.