MANITOWOC (NBC 26) — According to Chief Todd Blaser of the Manitowoc Fire Rescue Department, emergency calls came in just after 3 a.m. Wednesday reporting a fire at a warehouse facility. Manitowoc police were first on the scene and saw heavy fire and smoke from inside the structure.
"You hate to talk about events like this," he said. "Luckily, there is no loss of life in this fire."
Blaser says the building at 102 Revere Dr. is a storage facility and there are many different people renting parts of the property.
A spokesperson for J&M Professional Services says it had landscaping equipment and vehicles stored there that's almost a total loss.
"Just a lot of heavy fire at first," Blaser said. "There is a lot of coordination with water supplies, also using water from the Manitowoc River as well."
All efforts to extinguish the fire were from outside the building.
"We had basically all resources here from Manitowoc County area that are helping us in this structure fire today," Blaser said.
Volunteers from Manitowoc's Salvation Army Response Unit were on scene at 7 a.m. serving food and drinks.
"It really gives you a good feeling to be able to come out here and help these first responders, keep them hydrated, keep them healthy," volunteer Todd Chaney said.
The fire has been contained, but crews continued working into the afternoon.
"With this type of construction, it's gonna be very difficult to get to the actual seed of the fire," Blaser said. "[We're] doing some investigation, overhaul that needs to be done and dealing with some of those hotspots that we weren't able to get into."
The chief says parts of the building might be salvageable as there are two vacant areas in the building that are unaffected.
But there is severe damage to the structure as a whole.
"Everybody did what they needed to do and [I'm] just proud of the work that they do," Blaser said.
The 21st Street Bridge is closed to traffic in Manitowoc due to the large building fire, firefighters said Wednesday morning.
Firefighters arrived about five minutes after receiving the call.
There are no injuries to report at this time. The fire department is working with the owners.
