Finksburg, Md.-- A three-alarm fire heavily damaged a warehouse Tuesday and fire officials said they expected to battle the blaze into the night.
Employees said the fire at the Phillips Way warehouse in the Walnut Park Industrial Park started around 11 a.m. when they noticed smoke and heavy flames coming from a basement storage area used to house insulation.
"There was just flames everywhere," said warehouse employee Greg Martien, whose father owns the building. "All you could see was flames."
More than 100 firefighters and 40 firetrucks from three counties converged to battle the blaze, but were hampered by water supply problems, said Doug Alexander, a spokesman for the Carroll County Volunteer Emergency Services Association.
"The hydrants went dry on us," he said. "They lost pressure during the early stages of the fire; they had to call the tankers in for a third alarm to assist the fire."
After using tankers to bring in water from another location, firefighters began to make progress but still had trouble battling the flaming bales of fiberglass insulation, which were covered in sheets of plastic, Alexander said.
"The fire is getting into all these nooks and crannies of paper and plastic, and we are having a hard time getting to all of them," Alexander said.
Heavy black smoke poured from the building early Tuesday afternoon as warehouse employees used a skid loader to remove flaming heaps of insulation from a loading dock in the rear of the building.
Phillip Martien, the owner of the 40,000-square-foot building, said the area where the fire started was leased to a company called Cary Insulation.
"All the insulation is burning in the basement right now, and I don't know why it happened," Martien said, as he watched the building burn.
Employees and management of Cary Insulation at the scene declined to comment.
A team of state fire marshals was still working to determine the cause of the blaze early Tuesday evening. Damage to the building could cost millions of dollars, according to the state fire marshals office.
Reach staff writer Ari Natter at 410-751-5908 or [email protected].
Republished with permission of the Carroll County Times.
