BALTIMORE — A two-alarm fire damaged a warehouse in Anne Arundel County Saturday night.
Officials said the fire started at a vacant tractor supply store in the 400 block of Central Avenue in Davidsonville. His three businesses were affected: outdoor equipment, septic tanks, backhoes and tire businesses.
The roof caved in and the entire building was now visible from the outside.
“It was pretty bad,” said Rob Wilson, who owns Mid-Atlantic Outdoor Equipment, one of the companies currently dealing with excessive fire damage. “The back half of the building was completely gone.”
Wilson told WJZ his business has been in a warehouse since 2016.
“It's really tough. This is the time when we make most of our remaining money to get through the winter,” Wilson said.
Mr Wilson was at the scene all night as firefighters worked to extinguish the blaze, which continued into Sunday morning.
“Our units remained on scene,” said Don Kleine of the Anne Arundel County Fire Department. “There's a lot of cleanup and a lot of work to do investigatively to determine the cause and origin.”
Firefighters told WJZ they believe the fire started in the back of the tractor supply store, which was unoccupied at the time.
“This building has three businesses housed within a larger structure,” Klein said. “It appears that two of them, all three, have suffered some damage, but the third business appears to have a large amount of inventory and should be salvageable at this point.”
Fire investigators said crews had to shuttle water back and forth with tankers and hoses because the fire started in a rural area.
Crews said backup firefighters rushed to the scene of the fire and were able to bring the blaze under control within a few hours.
“The firewalls and other technical controls that were in place when this building was constructed appear to have had some effect,” Klein said.
And even as owners and employees continue to come to terms with what happened, they remain hopeful.
“I was talking to a guy who is going to evaluate it and see how it goes and do some makeshift work and see how it goes,” Wilson said. “Or find a temporary home. We'll see.”
“Firefighters said it took more than three hours to bring the fire under control.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
