Investigators know where Kansas City pallet warehouse fire started, not the cause
Investigators now know where a multi-alarm blaze that swept through a pallet company in Kansas City’s East Bottoms started but have not yet determined what started the fire, a spokesman for the Kansas City Fire Department said Friday.
Seven firefighters, including three who were taken to the hospital, were injured while battling the extremely hot fire and were treated for heat exposure and/or burns, said Jason Spreitzer, a spokesman for the Kansas City Fire Department.
Two of the firefighters taken to the hospital were treated and released Thursday. The third was held overnight and released Friday morning, Spreitzer said.
“Everybody is home safe,” said Spreitzer, who added that that was a big relief to all of the department’s firefighters.
The fire, which was reported shortly after noon Thursday, originated in a shipping container that was located outside in the yard at the Pioneer Pallet Brokerage Co. at 3526 Nicholson Avenue, Spreitzer said.
It then spread to the warehouse, which sits on 6.2 acres. About 90% of the property was on fire and more than one million gallons of water was used to put out the blaze, he said.
All of the workers were able to escape from the fire safely.
Edy Esquivel, who has worked at the pallet factory for two years, told The Star on Thursday that there are about 21 people who work there.
The fire started on the west side and moved to the factory area, he said. It then spread to the east side where more pallets were stacked.
“Everyone was yelling fire. Fire! Let’s go!” he said. “And we just started running.”
The fire engulfed materials both inside and outside the warehouse, sending black smoke billowing into the sky, which was visible for miles from the blaze.
“It was a very hot fire,” Spreitzer said. “It was just under 3,000 degrees because it melted the steel beams to the building. All the metal trusts that holds the building together, they were all melted.”
Steel will start bending at 1,800 degrees and then at about 2,800 degrees it will start melting, Spreitzer said.
Between 140 and 160 firefighters battled the blaze for hours, with fire and emergency medical crews rotating in and out. In addition to the heat generated by the fire, firefighters also dealt with one of the first really hot days of the year with temperatures upwards of 90 degrees, he said.
The warehouse and the pallets that were outside on the yard were a total loss. An estimated cost of the damages has not been determined, but Spreitzer said it was “catastrophic.”
The heat from the fire also damaged a pumper truck and a ladder truck on the sides facing the fire. The rigs were well over 150 feet away from the fence line of where the fire was located.
The fire was burning so hot and intense, it melted the plastic lens covers to the fire trucks and popped their tires in a matter of minutes of being exposed to the heat, he said. The department is assessing whether the trucks can be salvaged.
“We train every day and we prepare ourselves for tough situations like this,” Spreitzer said. “I feel like our crews did an excellent job mitigating the situation for what it could have catastrophically been.”
