Category Archives: Storage / Warehouse

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Milledgeville, GA – Reactive chemical sets fire to warehouse, sprinkler system helped keep fire in check; No injuries reported

A chemical fire Monday evening in a warehouse at the Zschimmer & Schwarz Inc. plant in Milledgeville left parts of the plant with heat and water damages.

No injuries were reported to either plant employees or to firefighters who were alerted to the scene following a 911 call about 6:30 p.m. Employees had evacuated the plant before the first firefighters arrived. 

More than two dozen firefighters from Baldwin County Fire Rescue and Milledgeville Fire Rescue responded to the fire, which reportedly sent flames up to the ceiling beams of the plant’s smaller warehouse, located to the left front portion of the building that overlooks Ga. Route 22 near Britt Waters Road. 

At least three different agencies were involved Tuesday in investigating the fire, including Baldwin County Fire Rescue, Baldwin County Emergency Management Agency and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Emergency Response Team.

“The fire was contained to one section in the warehouse,” according to Baldwin County Fire Rescue Chief Steve Somers.

He said the fire was believed to have been caused by a reactive chemical. The name of the chemical had not been disclosed publicly as of Tuesday afternoon.

“We’ll have it in the report as soon as it is completed,” Somers said.

The fire chief said none of the plant’s employees or any of the firefighters were exposed to the chemical, however. 

“Several other non-chemical containers also sustained heat damages from the fire,” Somers said. “Those products were not flammable. The fire just caused the substance in them to leak out.”

Somers said the only pallet of chemical substance that was what he described as hazardous was the one that caught fire.

The Milledgeville Zschimmer & Schwarz plant produces several different chemicals that are used for soap and other products.

“Most of the chemicals that they produce are not hazardous,” Somers said.

The fire spread smoke throughout much of the building, including the office area.

“There seems to be no other ignition source in that area, so that’s what we, and the chemist from the company, are going with at this time,” Somers said. “The chemist tried to explain to us that the product was not in a settled state. In fact, they were in the process of getting rid of it. They were not involved in getting rid of it when this happened, but they were working on the process of getting it out of the warehouse. But, it reacted before that could do something with it.”

Somers said the evacuation involved a skeleton crew of employees. All of them stayed on the front side of the building while county and city firefighters combed the building in search of hot spots.

The fire chief said a couple of ceiling beams were damaged due to the heat.

“The fire probable lasted just a few seconds, but it was hot enough to do that amount of damage in that short a period of time,” Somers said. “Immediately, it set off approximately 40 sprinkler heads in the warehouse.”

Somers said the plant’s offices sustained no real damages.

Firefighters were led by Baldwin County Fire Rescue Deputy Chief of Operations Philip Adams. 

“Everybody did a great job of working together,” Somers said, referring to county and city firefighters. “Anytime we have a structure fire, we back each other up. The city actually got there a few seconds before we did. And they did an awesome job in figuring out what was going on so they could give us a heads-up when we got there.”

Storage / Warehouse, Warehouse

Ogden, UT – Warehouse fire controlled by sprinkler system; No injuries reported

Crews from multiple fire departments were at the scene of a fire in a commercial warehouse in Ogden early Saturday morning.

Firefighters were dispatched at 2:42 a.m. to 2048 Washington Blvd.

The blaze caused Washington Boulevard to be closed to traffic from 20th to 21st Street, and the public was asked to avoid the area.

“Crews are working to vertically ventilate the structure. Crews continue to work to extinguish the fire inside the building. The building has a working sprinkler system that deployed prior to fire department arrival,” the department tweeted.

Firefighters were supplementing the structure’s sprinkler system through the fire department connection, and everything was under control at 3:47 a.m.

By 3:50 a.m., the fire was out and crews were continuing ventilation and performing overhaul procedures. Loss Stop benchmark established at 4:01 a.m., the tweet said.

The cause of the fire is undetermined and is under investigation by the Fire Marshal.

There were no injuries as a result of this fire.

Thirty firefighters from Ogden City, Roy City, and Riverdale Fire Departments are on scene, OFD tweeted.

Storage / Warehouse, Warehouse

St. George, UT – Warehouse fire stopped by fire sprinkler system; No injuries reported

The St. George Fire Department was called to Dixie Metal Recycling after a fire broke out in the warehouse just before noon.

According to Chief Robert Stoker, fire crews arrived in Fort Pierce Industrial Park just off of 1630 East to find the warehouse and office building full of smoke.

Employees were using a mobile, gas-powered cutoff saw inside the shop to cut what appeared to be copper pipes, Stoker said. Sparks from the saw ignited into flames after they entered nearby barrels full of shooting cartridges and bullet casings turned into the business by a shooting range. Stoker said employees were unaware of the contents of the barrels.

Four sprinkler heads activated and extinguished the fire prior to the crews’ arrival. Stoker said firefighters were able to clear the smoke, turn off the fire suppression system and overhaul the debris and surrounding area to ensure the fire was completely extinguished.

Stoker said all of the sprinklers were not activated because each head has its own temperature gauge.

“Rather than the whole sprinkler system going off, it will only fuse those heads in that area, and those sprinklers will turn on where they will supply water downward toward the water,” he said.

Businesses like Dixie Metal Recycling are required to have sprinkler systems and insulation because of the “hazardous nature of what they do,” Stoker said.

The majority of the shop remained dry, except for the area involved in the fire, which had water on the ground. There was minimal damage to the shop’s ceiling and walls due to the flames.

A Gold Cross Ambulance was available, but no injuries were reported and employees on scene refused medical treatment.

Storage / Warehouse, Warehouse

Kapolei, HI – Warehouse fire stopped thanks to fire sprinklers; No injuries reported

Authorities say a fire that sparked from a warehouse in Kapolei on Wednesday night was intentionally set.

The blaze started around 8:25 p.m.

The Honolulu Fire Department said the fire started in unit 11 in a building on Kalaeloa Boulevard near the intersection of Malakole Street.

The sprinkler system in the building helped stop the fire from spreading, fire officials said.

Crews extinguished the fire within about 25 minutes.

No injuries were reported.

The cause is under investigation.

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Schofield, WI – Fire caused by cardboard put out by fire sprinkler system; No injuries reported

 A fire broke out in a maintenance area at Northern Cold Storage Monday afternoon. It closed parts of Grossman Drive for several hours.

Firefighters believe some cardboard caught fire after a wall heater malfunctioned.

Internal sprinkler systems put the fire out, but the area also contained an ammonia pump. A hazmat team was called in by the storage company.

“They showed up here and made sure that the ammonia system was working correctly and it is,” said Rob Bowen, the Riverside Fire District Fire Chief. “So there’s no fear to the public or anything.”

Fire crews started packing up around 6:00 PM.

All employees evacuated the building without injury.

There was light smoke damage to the building.

Storage / Warehouse, Warehouse

Simi Valley, CA – Chemical fire at warehouse contained by fire sprinkler system

A large chemical fire in an industrial building in Simi Valley that sent plumes of smoke into the sky early Tuesday has been contained, fire officials said.

Ventura County fire crews received a report of a hazardous material emergency at a warehouse in the 100 block of Cochran Street near Madera Road about 6:15 a.m. Inside the building, 75-gallon drums filled with nitric acid were burning, sending up thick, dark smoke, said Capt. Anthony Romero.

People in neighboring businesses and homes were told to stay indoors as dozens of firefighters attacked the blaze from the outside of the building to keep the fire from spreading. The fire activated the sprinkler system inside the warehouse, Romero said.

At 9:45 a.m., fire officials said that the blaze had been contained and that firefighters would remain at the scene to deal with hazardous materials. Evacuation orders were lifted two hours later, and local businesses were allowed to reopen, although officials said a slight irritant smell may linger for the rest of the day.

Storage / Warehouse, Warehouse

Naperville, IL – Vending machine fire contained by single fire sprinkler; No injuries reported

A vending machine caught fire early Saturday inside a Naperville warehouse, but was quickly extinguished, authorities said.

Some two dozen firefighters responded to the commercial building on the 400 block of Fort Hill Drive at 5:20 a.m. after receiving a 911 call, as well as automatic notification from the building’s fire alarm system, according to a news release.

Firefighters arrived within five minutes, seeing nothing on the building’s exterior, but when they went inside, they found fire coming from the vending machine. A sprinkler head directly over the machine contained the fire to that room, and with a single hose line, crews were able to extinguish it, the release stated.

All occupants of the building were outside by the time firefighters arrived, and no injuries were reported.

Fire crews spent the morning removing water, using a fan boat to evacuate smoke from the building, and conducting salvage and overhaul.

Fire officials say the fire is accidental in nature.

Storage / Warehouse, Warehouse

Washington, DC – Sprinkler system contains fire started in basement of scooter warehouse

The warehouse fire started in a bin full of lithium batteries in the basement on Tuesday night just before midnight, says D.C. Fire spokesperson Vito Maggiolo. Smoke from the fire triggered the basement sprinkler system, which contained the fire to the immediate area and automatically triggered a call to the fire department. The department has ruled it an accidental fire, Maggiolo says.

Skip said in a statement on Twitter that the fire was not a scooter fire, and was not a charging-related fire. “The storage bin contained batteries removed as a result of the proper operation of Skip’s quality control process,” the company wrote. “Our D.C. warehouse team is working with experts to expedite the disposal of used batteries and is fully cooperating in the investigation.”

The latest fire comes after a parked Skip scooter caught fire on a sidewalk in late May. The company suspended operations for a short time after that fire, too, though it said at the time that they had “no reason to believe this affects any other vehicles in our fleet.” Skip reportedly addressed some “risk factors” that made it more likely for a fire like this to happen again, DDOT told the Post, though the agency did not specify what those risk factors were. The company put tamper-resistant battery cages on the scooters. The company found the cause of the fire was likely to be some kind of damage to the scooter, reports the Post.

There have also been additional fires at the Skip warehouse. Maggiolo tells DCist that the department responded to a very similar fire in September 2018, in the same basement storage area. That time, a scooter in charging mode went up in flames and triggered the smoke alarms and the sprinkler system. That fire was also ruled accidental, and “the result of an unspecified electrical event.”

The Washington Post reports that there was yet another warehouse fire in October. DDOT reportedly learned about those additional fires on Wednesday and issued the suspension, according to the outlet.

Read full story https://dcist.com/story/19/06/20/city-suspends-skips-scooter-license-after-warehouse-fire/

Storage / Warehouse, Warehouse

Riverside, CA – Fighter jet crashes into warehouse causing fire, fire sprinklers control fire

An F-16 fighter jet crashed Thursday into a warehouse just outside March Air Reserve Base in California, sending a dozen people to hospitals for evaluation after they were exposed to debris, authorities said.

The pilot ejected and parachuted to safety, said Maj. Perry Covington, the base’s director of public affairs. The cause of the crash was under investigation.

Interstate 215, which runs between the base and the warehouse, was closed in both directions, backing up rush-hour traffic for miles.

Television news showed a large hole in the roof and sprinklers on inside the building about 65 miles (105 kilometers) east of Los Angeles.

Cellphone photos and video from inside showed what appeared to be the tail of the plane buried in twisted metal and piles of cardboard boxes.

Daniel Gallegos, a warehouse worker, said he’s used to hearing the sound of planes coming and going, but the noise just before the crash was deafening.

“Next thing I know I just hear this explosion and turn around to the back of the building, and I just seen a burst of flames and just the ceiling started falling through every part of the building,” he told KABC-TV . “I turned around, and my co-worker just told me to get out, so I just made a run for it.”

A dozen people were hosed down and taken to hospitals, and there were no major injuries, state fire Capt. Fernando Herrera said.

The crash also caused a small fire doused by the warehouse sprinkler system, Herrera said.

The crash happened as the pilot was landing following a routine training mission, March Air Reserve Base Deputy Fire Chief Timothy Holliday said.

“The pilot was having hydraulic problems,” Holliday said. “He started losing control of the aircraft.”

The jet’s cockpit canopy was on a runway, and a parachute had settled in a nearby field.

Damage to the warehouse was relatively minor, and there was no major fire, which Holliday called “a miracle.”

The pilot, the only person on board, was taken to a hospital for examination, officials said.

The F-16, assigned to the Air National Guard, was carrying standard armaments, Holliday said. It will be recovered once authorities make sure the weapons don’t pose a risk, he said.

The base is home to the Air Force Reserve Command’s Fourth Air Force Headquarters and various units of the Army Reserve, Navy Reserve, Marine Corps Reserve, California Air National Guard and California Army National Guard.

The pilot is from the 144th Fighter Wing, an Air National Guard unit based in Fresno, and the F-16 belongs to the South Dakota Air National Guard in Sioux Falls.

Self-Storage Facility, Storage / Warehouse

Ferdinand, IN – U Storage fire kept under control by fire sprinklers

FERDINAND — Units of the Ferdinand Volunteer Fire Department were called Wednesday morning to the report of an active fire at U Storage, 2130 Industrial Park Road, which is housed in the former Mobel Inc. complex.

Fire Chief John Hoppenjans said firefighters arrived after the 11:07 a.m. page to find the building full of smoke. The fire had been extinguished by the building’s sprinkler system, he said.

The fire department ventilated the building with exhaust fans.

Hoppenjans said maintenance personnel were removing an old spray booth when a spark ignited old lacquer residue.

Personnel on site quickly tried to extinguish the flames with a fire extinguisher but the fire got out of control. Those on site then exited the building.

Four trucks and 22 firefighters were on the scene 75 minutes.

The Ferdinand Police Department assisted as did Memorial Hospital Emergency Medical Services, which had an ambulance on standby.