PHOTOS: A warehouse fire brought crews out to Fulford Street and Lay Avenue Thursday morning. After neighbors smelled smoke and called police around 5:30 a.m., Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety (KDPS) crews responded to heavy smoke coming from a steel warehouse on fire, according to KDPS officials.
No one was inside the building at the time of the fire. Because of the building’s metal structure creating an “oven-like” atmosphere inside the structure combined with the hot, humid weather, crews were rotated every 10 to 15 minutes to provide relief and keep them fresh, KDPS Fire Marshal Scott Brooks said. Another challenge for putting out this fire was the buildings length, age and amount of material inside of it causing fire hoses to get caught up as crews worked through the interior. “It’s an older building, there’s no fire suppression inside of it. Had the building had fire suppression we would’ve been able to turn the sprinklers on and put the fire out or at least control it a little but more,” Brooks said. “It’s just an older building that we’re just battling the old codes that were there.”
