[tx] A Grease Fire Started Next Door To My Business And Spread, Burning The Entire Building Down. Both The City And The Building Owner May Be To Blame. What Should I Expect In The Coming Lawsuits?

First thing first, yes, I am getting a lawyer as soon as humanly possible. But currently my entire livelihood has burned to the ground and I can't stop thinking about what may or may not happen.

Earlier today a fire was started in a restaurant connected to the building that I, and others had multiple businesses within. This building was old and in sincere need of upkeep, but the owner of the building refused to make any updates or repairs despite the tenants asking for years. The most egregious issue was the roof and ceiling, which were constantly leaking rain and slowly rotting.

The fire started, and was fairly contained in the restaurant's side of the building, being separated from the rest of the businesses by a wall. But the entire building was connected through beams and passages in the ceiling, so when the firefighters tried to funnel the flames through the roof by breaking a hole in it, it let all the oxygen and the fire through those passages and within 3 minutes the rest of the building's ceiling was on fire. So the outdated and decrepit ceiling that had been ignored by the building owner for years let the fire spread faster than ever. That's one of the reasons we feel he may be held responsible. He also has no insurance that he currently knows of. I had no fire insurance and most of the other stores didn't either, so that isn't an option as of right now.

As for the city, the building was on one of the main streets of the city, yet there were no fire hydrants nearby. the closest ones were too far for them to use the city's fire engine on because, according to them, the engine didn't have enough power to bring the water from that far away. So the firefighters waited for an HOUR AND A HALF as they waited for the next town over to lend them their trucks. So we feel the city may be held responsible for their lack of fire hydrants on their main thoroughfare, and for their lack of adequate fire fighting equipment capable of using the hydrants available.

In total, six businesses were burned to the ground and all of their inventory, totaling an inventory value that is honestly immeasurable to any accurate degree, but probably easily surpassing 100K.

Of course, we are going to go with our lawyer's best ideas, but I am concerned with how long these proceedings will be now that my business is gone, and the worry is keeping me up this evening. Any advice?