NASHVILLE - Nearly 200 firefighters needed almost 10 hours to bring a trucking company's warehouse fire under control Wednesday night and early Thursday.
By Thursday afternoon, Tom Kirchner, president of Norrenberns Truck Service, stood next to debris left from an 18,000-square-foot section of the warehouse that burned on Illinois 127, north of Interstate 64 and just outside Nashville. The rest of the 36,000-square-foot warehouse should be salvageable.
About 25 people work in the warehouse. While Kirchner said he will not rebuild the burned section, no one will lose his job because the company has several other warehouses.
Nobody was hurt in the fire. Kirchner said his insurance company had not yet assigned a dollar estimate to the damage.
Kirchner said the warehouse was a receiving area for Norrenberns' customers. He said aerosol paint cans and four to five truckloads of water-based paint were among the items stored in the warehouse. Empty pallets, cardboard boxes and 5-gallon pails were also in the building.
An investigator from the Office of the Illinois State Fire Marshal said the cause was undetermined. He could not comment further.
A Nashville Fire Department spokesman could not be reached.
"It was unoccupied for four hours before the fire and the doors were secured, so they're pretty sure there was no outside interference," Kirchner said.
A Nashville patrol officer spotted flames at 9:50 p.m. Wednesday.
"He saw a little fire over the interstate and thought it was somebody burning trash. Then, he noticed it was the warehouse on fire and heard an explosion," Kirchner said.
After the officer reported the fire to the Nashville Fire Department, Kirchner said 17 different fire departments and 195 men, mostly volunteers, came and worked for nearly 10 hours. Crews came from as far as Mount Vernon.
"These are typical Southern Illinois firemen. They did an outstanding job," Kirchner said.
This is the first time the trucking company has had a warehouse fire, but twice in the past 10 to 12 years Norrenberns warehouses have been hit by tornadoes.
