DAWSON CITY By 7:45 p.m. Thursday, Peter and Karen Jenkins were busy organizing the removal of the liquor stock from their damaged Eldorado Hotel.

Inspectors from the fire marshall's office were loading their equipment into the back of fire chief Jim Regimbal's command vehicle to go and assess the scope of the disaster.

Peter Jenkins, with his usual energetic style, looked up at the blackened second-storey windows of the Eldorado and remarked that it shouldn't be much harder to fix up than the mess after the disastrous 1979 flood swept across the town.

Thursday afternoon's fire had, of course, damaged the opposite end of the building from that earlier catastrophe.

A large section of the roof over the rooms above the main lobby and restaurant area had collapsed. None of the second-floor suites were going to need the new television sets that Jenkins had just picked up during his quick trip to Whitehorse, and it might be a while before the several cases of coffee are used anywhere.

Regimbal said he got the alarm on the fire at about noon, and was on-site about a minute later by his reckoning.

He was surprised it was the Eldorado, but also dismayed, because the add-on style of construction which characterized the complex a central building with an extension on one end and three more out the back could make it a difficult fire to fight.

The Dawson fire department usually practises silent running when going to fires. However, Dawson's streets were full of slush from wet snow that had fallen all the previous night and morning, and they wanted any oncoming traffic to get out of the way, so the sirens sounded.

The central location of the fire meant there would be spectators, so the RCMP had Third Avenue between Princess and Queen streets blocked off quickly.

Meantime, hotel staff had already evacuated the building.

His staff, Jenkins said, did an exemplary job in dealing with the emergency, and he is grateful that no one was injured.

Regimbal found the building 'quite involved, with lots of smoke coming out the north and south ends. Couldn't see many flames, but lots of smoke, and the smoke colour said that there was lots of heat inside.'

The fire chief positioned his pumper engines at both ends of the building to surround the situation. He then sent a team up onto the facade balcony at the front of the hotel to get at the second-floor rooms where it's believed the fire started.

Having previously inspected the balcony as part of his emergency preparation work, Regimbal knew it would bear weight and was safe to use.

Going through those windows, he said, was by far the quickest route to the fire much faster than running hoses inside and up the stairs.

Regimbal said he wasn't placing too much faith in the story of the smouldering bed igniting when a housekeeper flapped the sheets while making it. The tale had made the rounds through the town pretty quickly.

But he was reserving judgment until after he and the territorial fire marshall's officials have taken a closer look. The fire chief expects it will be two or three days before they nail down a cause.

By 12:15 p.m., there was a large crowd across the street and the RCMP constable on traffic duty was turning back students from the Robert Service School, sidetracked on their way to afternoon classes.

The smoke was billowing out of every possible outlet on the second floor, and flames could be seen through the hatch at the south end of the building.

The volunteer ambulance crew arrived and was ready to assist if needed, though there were no injuries.

Smoke from the burning building grew so thick that staff at the Dawson Daycare could not see the school.

The air intake system at the Red Feather Saloon/Territorial Liquor Store complex, kitty-corner from the Eldorado, was shut down. YTG property management personnel were prepared to do the same at the Robert Service School, just across the playing field, if the smoke wafted that way.

From the school classrooms, the view showed the fire had been contained to the south end of the complex, but that it did break out into one of the rear extensions next to Princess Street, with flames shooting several metres into the air through the smoke.

Nevertheless, the combined resources of the Dawson and Klondike Valley Fire Departments managed to bring the blaze under control. Regimbal confirmed it took close to 4 1/2 hours to do so.

'It was under control earlier because we were trying to push it from the unburnt area to the burnt, but then it ignited in one of the annexes. It's just indicative of the way buildings were made back then, with overlapping edges and no fire stop up in the attic.'

A crew from Yukon Energy was busy at the back of the hotel, shutting down the power.

A set of press releases from communications supervisor Janet Patterson indicated that the action, which was for the safety of the firefighters, also cut the power to homes in that part of the grid, affecting about 200 customers. The power was back on, except for the hotel itself, by 2:30 p.m.

The Jenkinses were in Whitehorse when they received the news. Karen said she was at the hairdresser, and Peter heard it on the radio when CKRW news director Ron McFadyen broke into regular early afternoon programming to alert Yukoners of the situation facing a local landmark in Dawson City. The couple immediately headed back to Dawson, arriving early Thursday evening.

Despite his initial bravado, Peter said they have not decided what they will do with the building.

The 52-room hotel employs about 30 people in the peak season and has both a busy bar and a restaurant. It is one of the only three hotels that remain open through the entire year, the others being the Downtown and the Westminster.

There is insurance coverage, Jenkins said, but decisions about rebuilding the Eldorado will have to wait until further information is available. He did say he really wants to know how it happened.

'Kudos to the fire department for doing an excellent job,' said the former Yukon Party cabinet minister.

The Eldorado Hotel was built in 1970 by Bill Hakonson on the lot previously occupied by his Dawson City Wholesale, which had blown up in 1969.

Hakonson operated the place in partnership with others, including his daughter, Lenore, and Peter Jenkins became involved in the operation when he and Lenore were married. Over the years, he acquired equity in the business and bought out his ex-wife when the two divorced.

The hotel has been a major player in the summer tourism business and has been very popular with the placer mining crowd.

It's certain that the community will be waiting with bated breath to see what the Jenkins family will do next.