A vehicle caught on fire in a storage unit, causing about $35,000 in damages, a Contra Costa County fire official said. Nobody was injured in the blaze in an unincorporated area near the city of Martinez, said Fire Marshal Robert Marshall.
Nearly 20 firefighters responded at 10:18 p.m. Thursday to reports of a fire in a storage facility in the 5700 block of Pacheco Boulevard, near Interstate 680 and Highway 4, Marshall said. Crews arrived and found smoke billowing from one of the units, where a fire sprinkler was spraying water, he said.
Firefighters used four engines and a truck to prevent the flames from spreading to other units, Marshall said. They got the one-alarm fire under control within 10 minutes. The cause is under investigation but Marshall said it might have started from oily rags left inside the vehicle.
“You need to dispose of rags like that because they can spontaneously combust,” he said. “We don’t know if that’s what happened, but all of the right ingredients were there.”
Seven fire companies responded to an early-morning alarm at the Eastwood Co. warehouse on Robinson Street Thursday for a blaze at the auto restoration supplier. Pottstown Fire Chief Richard Lengel said the alarm sounded at 4:52 a.m. when the sprinkler system at the business tripped.
The fire was caused by a malfunction in the conveyer system, although it’s not exactly clear how that happened, Lengel said. All four of Pottstown’s fire companies — Goodwill, Empire, North End and the Phillies — responded to the scene as did Sanatoga, West End and Limerick fire companies from neighboring communities, Lengel said.
New Hanover and Ringing Hill were on call while the fire was being fought. The fire itself was “not very big, it was under control by 5:21 a.m.,” Lengel said. The primary problem for firefighters was finding the flames. “The sprinkler did its job, so the place was filled with smoke and we had a hell of a time finding the actual fire,” Lengel said.
Because of all the automotive restoration products in the building, and the chemicals they contain, Lengel said the firefighters used air masks for the first hour as a precaution. Estimating the damage is difficult, Lengel said, because he does not know the value of the conveyer system, “which may be computerized, I couldn’t be sure” and because of the amount of water damage done to very specialized automotive products.
“But without the sprinklers, we wouldn’t have a building, and we would still be there now, and tomorrow and maybe the next day,” Lengel told The Mercury Thursday evening. “I’m serious, that’s a high-rack warehouse in there and who knows how long some of that stuff might have burned.”
Eastwood Co., a supplier of auto restoration materials started out in Philadelphia in 1978 and has since made its headquarters just off Shoemaker Road in Pottstown.
A fire at the Kent Buildings Supplies in Charlottetown last night was the result of halogen bulbs overheating from the emergency lighting, said Charlottetown fire inspector Winston Bryan after the investigation was concluded this morning.
The Charlottetown Fire Department responded to the call at 10:50 p.m. yesterday to the building on 65 Marsh Rd. Pallets of inventory and cardboard were ignited from the emergency lighting, which was powered by halogen bulbs.
The halogen bulbs produced enough heat to cause ignition of a box, which then spread to other boxes on the shelving unit.
The fire was contained in the warehouse area and shelving units, said Bryan. What contained the fire was the sprinkler system, said Bryan.
All clear was given at around 2 a.m. today with no injuries sustained Though this doesn’t happen often, it tends to happen more so in warehouses with the stacking of goods up against lights.
“Over time they will ignite,” said Bryan.
It boils down to training within the businesses to install lighting at proper heights. “Take it into consideration what you are actually storing in your warehouse… should be designed around that.”
“The sprinkler system basically contained the fire to one particular area of the building,” he said. “So having your sprinkler system maintained and inspected on a year to year base, as per code, assisted in the suppression of the fire.”
Reporting on lives and property saved by fire sprinklers
