Watch above: Firefighters continue to battle a stubborn three-alarm blaze at a west end industrial yard. Fletcher Kent reports.
EDMONTON – Roughly 120 firefighters from 29 units were called in to battle a large industrial blaze on the outskirts of west Edmonton Friday afternoon.
The fire broke out at Ace Pallets, located at 22403-113 Avenue, shortly after noon.
Huge flames and massive plumes of black smoke could be seen billowing from the site.
“What I seen was a lot of black smoke in the air and then a big ball of flames. And it was higher than the treetops,” said Steve Paul, who was bringing in asphalt for a nearby business around the time it started.
“I don’t know what it was but whatever it is is pretty volatile.”
By 3 p.m., the blaze had been contained to the pallet yard, which had a large number of vehicles in its lot. Shortly before 4 p.m. the fire was under control.
“There certainly is a heavy fire load so we are dealing with a lot of combustible material,” said Laura Ruddock on behalf of Edmonton Fire Rescue Services.
“We also were challenged with having only one access point to get into the industrial site.”
A propane business is located about two lots down; luckily, the wind was blowing in the opposite direction.
“That’s a godsend,” said Paul. “Because if it would’ve been going the other way we could’ve had a big catastrophic failure here…Lot of places would’ve gone up in smoke.”
What has made the fire fight more challenging, though, is the fact that there are no hydrants in the area. So six tankers from Edmonton and one from Parkland County had to haul in water to battle the blaze.
A six-block radius around the scene was evacuated, and police shut down 112 Avenue between Winterburn Road (215 Street) and 231 Street.
Nobody was injured in the fire. It’s not known at this time what sparked the blaze.
Crews anticipate to be on scene well into the night Friday.
Watch below: Our Global 1 chopper flew over the area to give you a bird’s eye view of the scene, which Damian Damiza also captured on the ground before his office was evacuated.
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