Bartlett warehouse fire expected to last into weekend
A fire that began at a document storage warehouse in Bartlett Thursday morning is expected to continue into the weekend as parts of the gutted structure remain inaccessible to firefighters.
Bartlett Fire Protection District Chief William Gabrenya said firefighters will keep the blaze in check "throughout the weekend" as construction equipment is brought in to remove debris from the areas of the massive 250,000-square-foot facility that can be reached.
"There are still panels of the walls leaning out there, and we're expecting them to collapse, but we can't get anyone near there until they do," Gabrenya said earlier Friday by phone from the scene. "There have been no injuries, and with the building being a total loss, we've slowed down operations to focus on the safety of our personnel."
Gabrenya said neighboring departments were bringing in "tower ladder" trucks to the scene to dump water onto the fire over some of the areas where walls have collapsed. Four had arrived by midafternoon.
Fire officials were meeting with a demolition crew to discuss the best methods to pull down any of the remaining walls.
Firefighters responded to the blaze just before 10 a.m. Thursday after being alerted by an automatic alarm inside Access Corp. document warehouse at 1200 Humbracht Circle.
Gabrenya said employees fleeing the building told firefighters that just a few boxes inside the facility were on fire.
Initial attacks were hampered as 40-foot-high racks of boxed documents inside the facility began to buckle.
"When those things start coming down, you got to get out of the way," Gabrenya said. "This was ceiling to floor filled with these boxes of paper."
Gabrenya believes the racks collapsed because of the added weight from all the water being dumped on the papers.
"Those boxes started getting wet and adding weight, and we think the racks just started failing from that," he said. "And when I say they were stacked floor to ceiling, I mean it was a foot from the ceiling, and all that paper just becomes a huge fire hazard."
When the roof gave way, it took out the sprinkler system and the air just fed the fire, ultimately engulfing the building, the chief explained.
The response also was hampered by frigid cold and high winds, fire officials noted.
More than 125 firefighters from dozens of neighboring jurisdictions have rotated through the attack since the initial alarm, Gabrenya said.
The cause of the fire is still unknown. It will be several days before fire officials are able to get anywhere near the point of origin.
No damage estimate was available, but the building was a total loss, Gabrenya said.
ABC 7 meteorologists detected on weather radar a long stretch of smoke from the fire extending south across DuPage County and west into Kane County.