After 23 Hours Firefighters Extinguish Blaze In South Brunswick Warehouse

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ — After 23 hours, firefighters managed to extinguish the blaze that engulfed a warehouse in South Brunswick, authorities said.

Over 300 members of the emergency crew, including firefighters, police, EMT and other essential workers, came together to battle the blaze which began Wednesday evening. The fire severely damaged the commercial building, authorities said.

At this time, the cause is undetermined, but not believed to be suspicious in nature, authorities said.

At 3:45 p.m. on Wednesday, the South Brunswick Police Department Dispatch Center received a call reporting a fire in a commercial building located at 2 Progress Road. Monmouth Junction Fire Chief Scott Smith and several police units arrived on scene within minutes and reported a significant amount of black smoke and flames coming from the roof of the single-story warehouse.

At the time, 15 employees were in the building and all of them made it out unharmed, authorities said. Firefighters immediately established command and began coordinating resources needed to battle the blaze, while local EMS units responded to support the operation.

Police were on scene to assist with traffic, and Office of Emergency Management personnel responded to provide additional resources and assistance. Firefighters began an interior attack on the fire, but were forced to evacuate the building due to heavy fire conditions in several sections, authorities said.

Once the majority of the fire was knocked down, firefighters re-entered the building and used multiple hose lines to attack the fires burning in the warehouse.

According to authorities, the materials stored inside the warehouse collapsed due to the fire and the use of water from hose lines and the building sprinkler system, resulting in a deep-seated fire that was difficult to extinguish.

Firefighters then began working in rotation to dig through the materials by hand and with the use of fork-lifts and skid-steer machinery to finally extinguish the blaze. As the scope of the operation grew, agencies throughout the state responded. County and State agencies responded to the scene to provide additional assistance, as did fire and EMS personnel from as far as 70 miles away, officials said.

By 2 pm. on Thursday, fire personnel were confident that the fire had been fully extinguished, and they began the process of demobilizing equipment. By 3 p.m., all personnel were cleared from the scene except the South Brunswick Fire Safety Bureau, which remained to continue investigating the cause of the fire.

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