Santa Clara firefighters brought a four-alarm fire at a cardboard-box manufacturing plant under control Thursday and continued to look for hot spots that might flare up.
The fire, at the Jefferson Smurfit Corp., 2500 De La Cruz Blvd., across from the north end of the Mineta San Jose International Airport, sent smoke hundreds of feet into the air. No one was injured, and no damage estimate was immediately available.
Santa Clara fire spokesman Dave Parker said investigators hadn't determined what caused the fire at the sprawling factory, which manufactures folded cartons from recycled paper.
At 8:42 a.m., a worker at the plant pulled a manual alarm hot-wired to the city's fire dispatch center, Parker said. By 9:15 a.m., the blaze had escalated to a four-alarm mutual-aid incident involving about 80 firefighters and more than two dozen engines and other vehicles, including San Jose Fire Department crews.
Hours after the smoke and flames were no longer visible late Thursday afternoon, some firefighters remained at the scene, carefully inspecting the duct work and ceiling with thermal-imaging equipment in search of hot spots.
Rich Dressler, a spokesman for the airport, said the blaze sent light brown smoke 800 feet into the morning sky.
``There was some thick smoke from the worst of the fire, but, fortunately, it's not a windy day, so the plume went straight up and had no effect on the airport,'' Dressler said.
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