Fire damages Farmington warehouse

• Fire

A fire damaged at least three storage units in a warehouse at 21130 Chippendale Avenue. The fire was reported after 3 p.m. Tuesday. Farmington fire marshal John Powers said at the scene he believes the fire started in one of several storage units in the building. There was one person working in the building at the time of the fire but he got out safely. This is the second fire in as many days in the Farmington area.
• Aerial support

Firefighters from Lakeville responded Tuesday to provide support both on the ground and from above.
• Smoldering boxes

A Farmington firefighter clears out still-smoldering boxes. The fire did a reported $200,000 damage.

Talk about it

First the chips were fried. Then they were roasted.

A Tuesday afternoon fire did in the neighborhood of $200,000 damage to a Farmington warehouse. Most of the damage was contained to a storage unit leased to Old Dutch. The unit contained a delivery truck and boxes of potato chips.

“All the potato chips are gone,” Farmington fire marshal John Powers said. “The truck is destroyed and their inventory in that part of the warehouse is destroyed. We’re looking at close to a $200,000 loss.”

One man working in an unrelated part of the warehouse, located at 21130 Chippendale Ave., got out without injury.

Powers said Wednesday he believes the fire started in the engine compartment of the truck. Flames and smoke did significant damage to the Old Dutch unit and there was heavy smoke damage to a pair of neighboring storage units. One of those units was leased to an individual who used it to store personal property. The other was leased to a lawn care company.

There was light smoke damage throughout the rest of the warehouse.

Farmington firefighters got a call about 3:15 Tuesday afternoon from an employee at a nearby Kemps facility. Powers said the fire was under control within about an hour and completely extinguished within and hour and 45 minutes.

Firefighters from Lakeville responded with an aerial ladder truck to ensure firefighters could get onto the roof safely if they needed to.

Tags: local news, news, fire