The Bartlett warehouse fire continues for its second day as firefighters continue to help bring the flames to a halt. What initially started with just a few boxes, took over the entire warehouse that was stacked with hundreds of boxes of documents. The documents that have been destroyed in the raging fire are also the reason the fire was able to spread so quickly. The warehouse was used by ‘Access’, a document storage company in the city.
The Fire Chief at Bartlett, William Gabrenya said, “These walls are collapsing on us. We don’t want to get any of the firefighters within that collapse zone, so at this point, we’re all aerials operations,” explaining why going inside or trying to bring the Bartlett warehouse fire down from the inside could be dangerous for the firefighters.
The location of the 250,000 square foot warehouse is at 1200-block of Humbracht Circle in Brewster Creek Business Park. The fire that has now been going on for more than just a day, has resulted in thick smoke so wide-spread the weather radar of Live Doppler 7 Max by ABC7 spotted it.
Fire Chief Gabrenya also told the press they were aiming to combat the Bartlett warehouse fire by dumping 5,000-6,000 gallons of water every minute, on Friday morning. He said the fire is already expected to be a “multi-day event”, they are therefore bringing in further equipment such as ladder trucks that could reach the warehouse from afar without having to risk lives.
When the fire initially started on Thursday, it was not a major problem as the sprinklers within the warehouse were keeping it at bay. Only when the racks that were storing the boxes collapsed due to damage sustained, did the fire start to turn into what it has become now.
Access, the company, released a statement regarding their recovery team that is currently at the location to, “assess the situation, determine any impact, and take necessary actions,” also reassuring that the warehouse building was evacuated as soon as employees found out about the fire. An investigation is underway to find out the cause of the fire.
So far there is no major concern about the air quality as the Fire Chief said, “It’s just paper products that are burning in there, so we’re not really concerned with air quality at this point.”
