Cause Of Leetsdale Fire Not Yet Determined
LEETSDALE (KDKA) -- After battling flames, thick black smoke and the smell of chemicals at the Leetsdale industrial park fire Tuesday, firefighters were back on the scene Wednesday morning putting out hot spots, and they say it could be some time before the actual cause is pinpointed.
Crews with heavy equipment were to begin dismantling the now collapsed building Wednesday morning. The huge fire is now out, but the work is far from over.
"There are still some things that are still on fire in the building that we are extinguishing," Leetsdale fire chief Ernest Logan said.
Still burning after 24 hours, and now that the smoke has cleared, the devastation is all too clear. One building destroyed and collapsed, and a second heavily damaged by fire, water and smoke.
It was a fire that seemed to burn forever inside a building owned by Lubrizol Corporation, a chemical company. Flames quickly spread from one building to another, prompting evacuations and warnings.
"Twelve hours of fighting this, and we returned to the scene three times since to extinguish hot spots," Logan said.
Millwood is a warehouse right across from where the fire broke out. One of the workers there just happened to be outside.
"I was out front, I heard little sounds of explosions, boom boom boom," eyewitness Luis Quineous said. "I thought stuff was tumbling down, and it was like a cloud of smoke, gust mixed with smoke, you could see the top of the roof on fire."
When asked if a cause had been determined yet, Chief Logan responded, "Absolutely not. There is a lot of work to be done to find the point of origin and determine the cause from there."
According to Lubrizol, the fire began while workers were adding or mixing chemicals in a production tank.
"That's what I'm led to believe," Logan said. "I actually have not had conversation with the people mixing the chemicals or the company."
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