‘I’m kind of numb’: Businesses, tenants plan next steps after downtown Helena fire

Phil Drake

Jozsef Mozer was in the Iron Front Hotel late Monday when the fire started and he heard the alarm.

He said fellow tenants banged on doors to let neighbors know there was trouble.

And on Wednesday morning, the 57-year-old Mozer sat inside a Red Cross shelter at the Helena First Church feeling grateful. He was among the seven of the hotel’s 30 residents who came to the shelter.

“I don’t know what we’d do without the Red Cross,” the 57-year-old house painter said in a voice that gave a hint of his Hungarian accent.

He said he had lived at the Iron Front for four years and was happy there.

A shelter set up by the American Red Cross at Helena First church for displaced residents of the Iron Front Hotel building.

THOM BRIDGE, Independent Record

“The managers are very nice people,” he said.

An electrical fire hit the historic building at 415 N. Last Chance Gulch at about 9:50 p.m. Monday, starting in a void area between the second and third floors. The fire displaced 30 people living in rooms

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