PITTSBURGH — Firefighters battled a four-alarm fire at a large commercial building in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood for hours Saturday morning.
Click here for photos from the scene.
A spokesperson with Pittsburgh Public Safety said police, fire and medics were called to the CleanCare warehouse on 51st Street just after 10 a.m.
Flames could be seen shooting up from the roof of the hospitality and restaurant linen business. Heavy smoke was billowing out.
Eliza Pratt lives less than half a mile away. Some of her neighbors saw the thick grey smoke. A thrift store across the street had to close early. A sign on the door read, “Thriftique is closed due to the fire across the street. We will reopen Sunday, 4/27.”
“I heard a lot of sirens. That’s what woke me up this morning,” Pratt said. “My friend who lives down the street, her house was filled with smoke.”
A Pittsburgh Public Safety official says the fire spread rapidly through the industrial space used by a linen laundering business.
With flames continuing to spread despite firefighter efforts and a sprinkler system, the blaze was raised from a first to a fourth alarm in less than an hour. At one point, all firefighters were evacuated from the building.
The fire was deemed under control by 12:24 p.m., while crews were still working to put out hotspots throughout the facility. Crews maintained a fire watch for several hours after to prevent re-ignition.
CleanCare COO Jason Preffer told Channel 11’s Antoinette DelBel the fire damaged some offices, including the break room and they lost some new inventory. Preffer, however, said it won’t stop them from serving customers, adding it’ll be business as usual at the two other plant locations in Pittsburgh and Buffalo.
“We ended up just passing by where the fire had been this morning and saw the smoke outside the windows,” said Zina Zarzycki of Squirrel Hill. “They’re all charred up looking and you can still kind of smell the smoke even though it’s been a few hours.”
No one was working at this warehouse at the time.
The public safety official says one firefighter was taken to a hospital for evaluation for a minor non-burn knee injury. No other injuries were reported.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
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