MO Firefighters Battle Large Industrial Park Blaze

July 13—A large pillar of blackish-gray smoke from a two-alarm fire at the Leeds Industrial Park on Kansas City's East Side near Arrowhead Stadium was visible for miles Tuesday morning.

The fire, which was discovered about 1:15 a.m., is expected to take days to extinguish because of its size and location, said Kansas City Fire Department spokesman Jason Spreitzer. Firefighters also don't know what hazards are inside individual spaces that are sublet in the building.

"It's a rather large fire and it's difficult for us to get to where the location of the fire is so we're in a defensive location," he said. "We have our aerial truck up and they're throwing a large amount of water onto the fire from four different water sources, meaning four different fire hydrants."

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Firefighters also don't know what hazards are inside individual spaces that are sublet in the building, he said.

A security guard noticed that there was smoke in the building and upon investigating its source, they found there was a fire.

"When crews initially made the entry into the building, they started making observations and they were in there for about 30 minutes making progress to a point," Spreitzer said. "But it was determined by the incident commander that the safety of the crew was in jeopardy and so they decided to go into a defensive tactic."

The commander noticed that the fire was enclosing around the fire crews faster than they could put it out. For they safety of the crews, firefighters have take a defensive stance to protect the rest of the buildings in that area.

The fire is centrally located in the building that consists of spaces that are sublet to individual business owners who do industrial work, including welders, painters and a body shop. That is where the fire is the heaviest, Spreitzer said.

In another part of the building, boats, RVs and vehicles are stored, but none of that area has been affected by the fire, he said.

Everyone who had been checked in to the building made it out safely and have been accounted for, Spreitzer said. No injuries have been reported. The cause of the fire is unknown at this time.

The fire department were rotating fire crews out to get fresh personnel in to fight the fire. There were about 35 firefighters on the scene battling the fire.

Firefighters were using a thermal imaging camera on a drone, which they call a kite because it's tethered, to monitor where the heat is inside the building so can they can see where the fire is, Spreitzer said.

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