About 3 a.m. Monday, an employee arriving early for work to the Padnos Recycling Center found smoke filling the building at 601 Letellier Avenue near Wealthy Street in Grand Rapids and called 911. Bill Smith is the Grand Rapids Fire Marshall
“They attempted entry into the building to initiate fire attack operations and were pretty quickly driven back from the building from the intensity of the fire.”
Aerial crews worked from above, but the adjacent building posed another major concern, containing combustible metal and petroleum by-products.
Daylight showed a huge plume of black smoke rising above Grand Rapids and midmorning, the roof collapsed. A firewall between the buildings kept the fire from spreading but it took several hours to put out the flames.
Investigators canvassed the area, searching for surveillance cameras or neighbors that might provide information on what started the fire, and put in a call to the National Weather Service.
“We had an active thunderstorm with plenty of lightening in this area and that is a possibility that we have a weather-related incident.”
No one was injured in the fire.
