Fire reduces warehouse to rubble

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - Investigators are working to pin-point a cause behind Thursday's massive fire that reduced a Buffalo warehouse to rubble.

It could be days before investigators know what caused the Kaisertown inferno.

It took fire crews four hours to get the blaze under control, as the city maxed out it's resources with over 100 firefighters on the scene.

Buffalo Fire Commission Garnell Whitfield called a four-alarm fire, "very rare."

The Dingens Street fire turned into that four-alarm fire in just over two hours.

The Superior Pallets warehouse fire on was already going strong when the first crews arrived just after 4 a.m. Thursday.

The flames were so high, they could be seen for miles around.

"We had a lot of fire, a lot of smoke and a whole lot of challenges," said Buffalo Fire Division Chief Scott Barry.

One of those challenges was the wind, blowing the fire and smoke east, to the buildings and brush next door.

Whitfield said, "We had some diesel fuel and maybe 3,000 or so pallets stacked in the back. They were aflame in the back of the building, it did get into the brush in the back and we had a pretty good wildfire going."

The building next to the warehouse had some exposure damage, but fire crews worked hard to keep the flames at bay.

Barry said, "It really could have been bigger and it could have been worse."

Some neighbors thought it was pretty bad.

"Went outside and it looked and it looked like the sun was rising from the north the flames were insanely high," said Alex Szymanski, who lives nearby.

Resident Evelyn Grabowski said, "I could not believe the black thick billowing smoke."

A small neighborhood around the corner was right in the line of the smoke when it started moving late morning.

"It really wasn't bad until the smoke, they started to get the fire out around 9:00 and the smoke was unbearable, the stench was pretty bad from the wood," said a resident named Tina.

In the end over 100 firefighters were on the scene throughout the morning.

"The original fire building is a total loss, but the stuff around it can be fixed," said Barry.

The damage is pegged at $4 million to the warehouse and property.

Five firefighters were injured at the scene, one needed to be hospitalized with minor injures.