A fire destroyed a business in Sandwich and took firefighters more than 16 hours to extinguish, Sandwich Fire Chief Don Rimgale said.
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Firefighters were called to Gord Industrial Plastics, 1300 block of West Sixth Street, around 10:20 p.m. Wednesday for reports of a fire. Five people inside the building were able to exit before fire crews arrived, but two were transported to an area hospital for treatment of mild smoke inhalation, Rimgale said.
When fire crews arrived on the scene, Rimgale said they noticed the northeast corner of the building fully engulfed in flames.
“We had enough lines, but I knew we would need more man-power,” Rimgale said of the size of the fire. At that point, he upgraded to a box alarm and called for more than a dozen area fire departments to respond.
As the fire grew, it caused the building’s roof to cave in, creating a difficult environment for fire crews to work in, Rimgale said.
“There was a lot of flammable stuff in there,” he said. “Once that gets going, it doesn’t stop.”
Rimgale said fire crews responded back to the scene six times on Thursday to put out pockets of flames that had flared up as excavators removed the caved-in roof and took down the building’s walls.
No one was seriously injured during the fire, but after more than 16 hours battling the blaze, “we’ve got a bunch of tired, tired firemen,” Rimgale said.
“We know where the fire started,” Rimgale said of the building’s northeast corner. “We just don’t know why.”
The fire remains under investigation.