Fire Does More Than $1 Million Damage; Aldi Grocery Store Closed

An Aldi grocery store is closed due to a raging fire last week.

Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department units responded to a commercial building fire last week — Tuesday, Nov. 4, at approximately 10:27 p.m., in the Woodlawn area of Fairfax County. The commercial building is located at 8256 Richmond Highway which is the location of Aldi Grocery store. The fire and damage closed the store.

First arriving units encountered a single-story strip shopping center with smoke showing from the front and rear of the building. Due to the volume of fire and size of the structure, a second alarm was struck and RIT Level1 (Rapid Intervention Team) was requested to bring additional crews and resources to the scene.

Over 50 firefighters and paramedics stretched several hose lines into the structure to extinguish the fire, there were no automatic sprinklers located in that area of the store. Firefighters conducted an aggressive fire attack and brought the fire under control in approximately 30 minutes.

Damage is estimated at $1,250,000 to the structure and contents.

According to Fairfax County Fire Investigators, the cause of the fire was accidental in nature. An electrical anomaly in the cardboard compactor’s control panel caused the fire.