Orwigsburg Fire Department

Original Article: @WNEP https://www.newsbreakapp.com/n/0eWxQd0d?pd=07rwqQ7A&lang=en_US&s=i16

ORWIGSBURG, Pa. — Fire swallowed a warehouse in West Brunswick Township, near Orwrigsburg. 

Daniel Cameron was out early delivering newspapers on Saturday morning when he saw the flames and sent this video to Newswatch 16.

RELATED: Building destroyed after early morning fire in Schuylkill County

“The first fire truck for the fire pulled in before me; I was following them down the road. And the video shows that there is only one fire truck there. They’re not even spraying water yet. So that was the full blaze, no water on it at all. It was terrible,” said Daniel Cameron of Orwigsburg. 

In the daylight, the building is leveled. 

The Deer Lake/West Brunswick Fire Chief says the call came in just before 4:30 in the morning and quickly went to a 2nd alarm.  

Roy Heim is the owner of Heim Construction.

He says a plastics company called “Clearly Clean” rents the warehouse from him to house raw materials. 

Thanks to a firewall – Heim says his facility, next door, was likely saved from even more damage.

“We were forced by code enforcement to build a 2-hour wall that separated our facility from the storage facility and we lost, we had some loss in our office but not fire. More water damage and smoke,” said Roy Heim, the owner of the construction company. 

The fire chief says it will be some time before all the rubble is cleared. The construction company owner does tell Newswatch 16 he plans to rebuild.

“At the end of the day, it’s a loss of material. Material is not everything. So we’ll get through it,” Heim said.

“If people were in there working and this happened, It would have been devastating,” Cameron said. “So thank god nobody got hurt, and I feel bad for the owners of the building at least they will be able to rebuild and move forward.”

A State Police Fire Marshal is investigating.

Schuylkill County EMA has been contacted to figure out how to properly dispose of the material and whether there is an environmental concern for soil and runoff. 

The Orwigsburg Fire Department was dispatched to USS Acheys for an unknown type fire. Engine 56-10 responded with six on board. Schuylkill County Communications advised while enroute, that the “fluff” pile from the shredder was on fire.

While responding, the crew could see a large smoke column at the location from the 200 block of W. Market St. A tanker task force was requested bringing tanker units from Landingville, Deer Lake, Schuylkill Haven, Auburn, New Ringgold, and Friedensburg. Crews arrived to find a large pile of various automobile parts heavily involved. An initial attack line was deployed but after a few minutes, engine 56-10’s water supply ran out until the first tankers arrived on scene a short time later.

Once a water supply was established, an additional hand line from 56-10 was utilized. After the fire was under control, a crane was used to pull apart the pile so that all materials could be wet down and smoldering debris extinguished.

While 7 members of our Department were at the Schuylkill Fire Training Center in Frackville working on the 3rd Module of the Essentials of Firefighting Course, OFD was dispatched to move up to Pottsville Fire Station 30 to cover for the Pottsville Fire Department who were committed to a multiple alarm, multiple structure fire in the City.

Engine 5610 and Chief 56 took the assignment at Station 30 and were joined by Mahanoy City Humane Engine 451 and Frackville Goodwill Ladder 43-20. Assistant Chief 5601 remained on duty in Orwigsburg and before the afternoon was over, he would respond with Engine 5611 and Rescue 56 to a structure fire involving a shed in E. Brunswick Twp. Seventeen OFD firefighters were in operation throughout the day.