Fountain Lake firefighters work to put out a blaze in one of the storage units in Block C of the Park Avenue Mall, 3000 Park Ave., Thursday afternoon. – Photo by Grace Brown of The Sentinel-Record
FOUNTAIN LAKE — A blaze that destroyed a storage building at Park Avenue Mall & Storage on Thursday took multiple fire departments about five hours to extinguish and led to the closure of Park Avenue around the scene for around five hours, Fountain Lake Fire Department said Friday.
Fountain Lake Fire Chief Chris Farmer said the 10,000-square-foot Block C building at 3000 Park Ave. was a “100% loss.”
Farmer said the fire was reported by passersby at 3:43 p.m., and FLFD was dispatched at 3:45 p.m., arriving on the scene by 3:53 p.m. “All fire departments were cleared by (8:55 p.m.),” he said.
Eleven Fountain Lake firefighters responded to the call with two engines with assistance from Morning Star, Piney, Jessieville, Hot Springs and Lake Hamilton fire departments, Farmer said, with “Crows (Station) and Lonsdale on standby for district coverage.”
Farmer said there were no injuries with the fire, and no one was inside the building.
The building material, Farmer said, was part of the reason it took so long to put the fire out.
“We had to wait on county road department to come in,” he said, noting they brought in heavy equipment to help fight the fire because the metal roof of the structure was too weak for firefighters to walk on.
Another problem was how full the storage units in the building were, he said, noting, “It was full of stuff from one end to the other, and from the floor to the ceiling.” He didn’t know how many units were in the structure.
Farmer said Park Avenue had to be closed to traffic for about five hours. To help keep the firefighters safe during the hot and humid scene, Farmer said they were on 30-minute shifts and after each shift a firefighter would have to rest for 30 minutes. After a second 30-minute shift, firefighters had to take an hourlong break.
Farmer said the county judge’s office was also on scene, as was the county’s Department of Emergency Management.
He said he was “very, very happy” with how well all the different fire departments and agencies worked together during the fire.
“Very special thanks to everybody,” he said.
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