Two-Alarm Blaze Guts Florida Ice Warehouse
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. --
A two-alarm fire late Friday morning gutted the Ice Magic Company on Satellite Boulevard in Orange County. The walls were left standing, but the roof and just about everything else was destroyed.
SLIDESHOW:Images Of Firefighters Battling BlazeRAW AERIAL VIDEO:Warehouse Gutted By Massive Fire
Firefighters were making sure the 15,000 square foot warehouse is safe to enter before investigators with the State Fire Marshal's Office start looking for a possible cause Friday afternoon.
The general manager told Eyewitness News that ten to 15 employees were inside the building when they noticed smoke coming out of the back.
"The smoke hadn't made its way to the front. There was a concrete wall that separates the warehouse from the office," said General Manger Byron Loper.
The industrial area near the Orange Blossom Trail was blocked off after the fast-moving fire destroyed the building and everything inside, specifically acrylic products, LED lighting and ice sculptures used in the corporate event industry.
"I'm not sure. I don't know [what sparked the fire]," Loper said.
Loper said he was inside the building when some of his workers tried to put out a small fire, but when it got too large for them they evacuated the building.
More than 75 firefighters took over and immediately doused it with hundreds of gallons of water. They even protected the adjacent buildings from the heat that could have caused significant damage to those businesses.
"We have so many solvents, paints, oils. That was very, very dangerous," said Javier Calderon, owner of the Automex next door.
Loper said the setback will not affect the day-to-day operations. He said Ice Magic has other offices in Tampa and Naples.
"Just that we've gotta recover. We turn products around extremely fast, so I don't see any problem with that," Loper said.
The building did not have a fire alarm or a sprinkler system. It was built in 1991 and may not have been required to have sprinklers because of its size.
No details on a possible cause have been released.