The cause of a fire at Black River Lanes on Oberlin-Elyria Road on Sunday afternoon was undetermined. It was the third fire of the weekend in the county.

The Carlisle Township Fire Department responded to the bowling alley a little after 4 p.m. and quickly put out the fire in an attached garage.

Fire Chief Kevin Dembiec said the point of origin, cause and damage were still being investigated.

Bartender Mike Bedock, 40, said a patron “smelled smoke and alerted everyone else.”

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Dembiec said the business was empty of people when the fire department arrived. About 16 firefighters from Carlisle and the LaGrange Fire Department responded.

The garage appeared to be a storage area for several items including a very large bag of aluminum cans — probably for recycling, Dembiec said.

The fire was contained to the garage but the main building also sustained smoke damage, Dembiec said.

Firefighters around the the county fought two other fires, as well.

In Lorain, firefighters spent an hour putting out a brush fire Saturday night behind some homes in the 4000 block of Laurel Road.

Assistant fire Chief Gary Burls said the fire broke out just after 9 p.m. about 500 feet behind the residences and did not spread beyond the field itself.

“It’s a fire in an open field, no electricity, no gas,” he said. “It’s undetermined. There were no obvious causes of ignition.”

It’s unknown if the land is privately or publicly owned and the fire department won’t investigate that because no buildings were involved and there’s no dollar loss, Burls said.

The LaGrange Fire Department responded to a barn fire at 3 p.m. Saturday in the 400 block of West Main Street.

The nearly 100-year-old structure had been abandoned by the property owners and was empty at the time of the blaze, said LaGrange Fire Chief James Rader.

The cause of the fire, not considered suspicious, is still under investigation and a damage estimate wasn’t given as the barn was uninsured. It was a total loss, Rader said.

A nearby resident spotted the fire and called it in, Rader said, adding it took firefighters 45 minutes to put it out.

Wellington and Carlisle fire departments provided mutual aid.

Contact Alicia Castelli at 329-7144 or acastelli@chroniclet.com.

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