Heat of East St. Louis warehouse fire caused maximum damage, hampers investigation
The fire at a sprawling warehouse facility in the 1400 block of Mississippi Street in East St. Louis, which filled the skies with plumes of black smoke on the afternoon of April 16, took firefighters from multiple departments many long hours to control.
A lack of water was an issue, fire officials said. And an ongoing Illinois State Fire Marshal’s office investigation into how and where the fire started at the century-old building also is hampered by what the extreme heat did to its interior.
“All of the evidence has been totally destroyed,” East St. Louis Assistant Fire Chief George McClellan said.
The sprawling facility, which is owned by Richard Sauget, covers about 360,000 square feet and straddles the corporate limits between East St. Louis and Sauget.
Firefighters arrived on scene at the storage facility at about 2 p.m. not knowing the scope of the fire, even as they entered one of the burning storage bays.
“We initially thought we would be able to go in an stop what what was going on, but within three or four minutes, we had to come out. The fire was too hot, the smoke was too thick,” McClellan said.
The building’s sprinkler system had quickly become overwhelmed by the blaze, allowing it’s rapid spread, said McClellan.
Firefighters attempted to control the flames with a “master stream,” which can douse a fire with 350 gallons of water per minute or more. The fire was too hot and support from other departments was needed, McClellan said.
“The hydrants at the storage facility were on a loop system, so there was just one small valve that went around the complex. The loop circle is not enough to put different plugs into the circle. If I take four inches and another takes four inches, there won’t be enough water volume. We had to supplement with tankers,” McClellan said.
Billowing black smoke could be seen for miles around. Eighteen tankers, nine adder trucks and 10 pumpers from more than a dozen fire departments were called in.. Each tanker holds 1,000 gallons of water, McClellan said.
Belleville, Collinsville, DuPont, Prairie DuPont, Sauget, Hollywood Heights, Freeburg, Signal Hill, Highland-Pierson, Maeystown, Columbia, Long Lake, St. Jacob, Smithton, Mitchell and Marine Fire Departments responded with assistance.
“The fire was rolling fast,” McClellan said.
Five bays at the sprawling storage facility were involved in the fire.
“We stopped it at bay six,” McClellan said. “Various businesses use the facility to store different things. Each bay is a separate business. Some of the bays are broken up into a couple of different companies. Each bay is probably the size of (East St. Louis High School) gym. The are over 30 plus agencies in there.”
Among them were Nations Food Service Equipment and Design and BCL Auction both occupied warehouse bays. There also was an automotive repair business and racing car team. Sauget told Fox 2 News that some of his tenants had been there more than 30 years.
The fire rekindled Friday and fire crews were back at the scene for an additional five hours.
“It just didn’t go out. The roof fell. There was lots of tar there,” McClellan said.
McClellan confirmed there were no injuries.
This story was originally published April 22, 2020 at 2:09 PM.
