Nov. 19—MIDDLETOWN, NY — The owner of a business renting space to Frito-Lay's PopCorners says cardboard boxes stacked too close to a heating system caused a massive fire that decimated several Midland Avenue businesses.
The fire, which began just before 11 a.m. Thursday, destroyed the Michelson Studio II soundstages at 9 Midland Ave. in the City of Middletown, in addition to a nearby Amazon warehouse space and surrounding businesses, including a body shop.
Middletown Fire Chief Don Luis was not available to speak about the fire or its cause. Vini Tankasali, Orange County's fire coordinator and deputy commissioner of emergency services, and Middletown Mayor Joe DeStefano said the cause of the fire was not yet known.
In addition to the soundstages, DeStefano said a body shop and Amazon warehouse space were a total loss and that other businesses were lost, but neither he nor Tankasali could immediately list the companies' names. Tankasali said the fire also devastated 6 Midland Ave. and 4 Midland Ave.
Though the Middletown Fire Department took the lead in fighting the blaze, 25 local fire departments — from Port Jervis to Chester — responded to provide support services and backup in case other fires broke out in Middletown, Tankasali said.
No firefighters or civilians were hurt, Tanksali said, adding that the fire was discovered around 10:50 a.m. by civilians who flagged down a Middletown fire truck as firefighters were driving it to get fuel.
He commended a fast response that likely saved lives and buildings, as 23 mph winds carried embers that threatened an area dense with nearby businesses and homes.
"The fires were 100% contained" within a few hours, Tanksali said at 2 p.m. "But we have such extensive damage because the buildings are so big that (the Middletown Fire Department) will need to bring in heavy equipment like excavators, and they'll be extinguishing hotspots into the night."
A distraught Eric Michelson, owner of Michelson Studio II, said in a brief phone interview that he was renting out part of the 60,000-square-foot building to PopCorners' owner, PepsiCo's Frito-Lay, for storage. PopCorners has a factory a little more than a mile away.
"They were just using the place for storing cardboard boxes for their packaging, and they stacked it up too high, and got it close to the infrared heating system, which caught it on fire and the whole place was filled with cardboard," Michelson said over the phone.
"It's a fire that never would have went out even with sprinklers" going off, Michelson said.
A Frito-Lay spokesperson could not immediately be reached to comment.
"The loss of property can be replaced, but it's going to hurt quite a few people and quite a few employees (of the businesses lost) will be saddened," said DeStefano, who added that what mattered most was that people were not hurt.
Tankasali said Orange County's fire investigators won't have a preliminary finding about the fire's cause for at least a couple of days due to the fire's size and extensive damage to buildings at the scene.
He said the county's fire investigators also will be requesting assistance from the state Office of Fire Prevention and Control for the investigation.
It took $6.5 million and four years of renovations and improvements and consolidating the land around the 20-acre Middletown property that houses Michelson Studio II for Michelson and property owner Israel Eisdorfer to open the soundstages in 2018.
The Middletown property is a former O&W train repair area. Since becoming home to Michelson's businesses in 2018, the soundstages have been used for a variety of purposes and shoots, including as a practice space for Metropolitan Opera to stage Wagner's "The Ring."
Michelson, a California transplant in his late 60s, has run the 8,000-square-foot Michelson I Sound Stage in the West Village of Manhattan for more than 30 years.
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