Fire Battalion Chief Vividly Recalls the Scene of Friday's Fire

“I don’t know what the temperature was, but the smoke was cold, so it was sitting down on the street,” recalls Battalion Chief Fred Barnett, describing the ominous scene he and a crew of San Angelo firefighters encountered while most of the city was sleeping. “It was so thick with smoke, we couldn’t see the grain elevator across the street. We didn’t know for sure which building it was. There was no fire, no indication of fire other than just heavy smoke in the neighborhood.”

Four fire engines cruised down the street where Schneider Distributing Company sits in the city’s warehouse district, surrounded by it’s own petroleum products, propane tanks and oil cartons and drums. Firefighters were unaware of who had made the call—a citizen or an employee—but had to hope and assume that at 4:47 a.m. no one was in the building they had yet to identify.

“Coming down MLK, we determined that it was that building [Schneider Distibuting], and it was just smoke pushing out everywhere, everywhere it could,” Barnett says. “Under the doors, off the eaves, through the roof; but no fire, it’s just heavy smoke everywhere.”

Firefighters got out of the engines and made their way to the north side of the building, then entered low through a door in the middle of the structure. Keeping close to the floor, the fighters felt no heat and began to search for the source when the flames picked up. Those on the outside of the building took notice, and ordered the others immediately out as the situation became increasingly dangerous.

“Usually in a building like that, what we’re thinking is this could potentially be a backdraft,” Barnett explains. “There’s a fire that has been starved for oxygen and has kind of put itself out and the heat is in there, it’s just not in a flame. Once we go in there and introduce fresh air… as we try to find the fire, it gets enough oxygen and it just flares up, due to the heat rising to the top. It could very well be above them so that’s why they didn’t feel it at first,” he says.

Firefighters outside watched smoke pour out of every crevice and be forced out of tiny cracks. Anywhere a wall met the ceiling or a window wasn’t sealed, smoke streamed out. The doors and windows were closed and intact, but the building had become charged with smoke and was pushing black clouds out from even the tiniest of spaces.

“We’re not sure where it originated, but that’s where it started blowing out the windows and the doors,” Barnett said. “When that happened, we backed everybody out…in just a matter of minutes, the entire building was engulfed in flames.”

Schneider Distributing is a propane service company on Martin Luther King Dr., near a number of other warehouses and buildings. The back half of the warehouse was stocked with 55-gallon drums, one-gallon jugs and cases of bottled quarts of oil. A building sits to the south of Schneider, dangerously close to where the fire had broken out, and gasoline and petroleum equipment lie bordering the raging building to the north and west.

Recently, there have been three fairly large fires in San Angelo, two of which in the same area as the one that broke out Friday morning. Barnett remembers the anxiety he felt this morning being called out to the warehouse full of fuel.

“This fire was very much like the big warehouse fire,” he says. “We come out of the station—it’s two blocks behind the station—we can see the smoke and we know we’ve got something going on. You’re pretty uptight when you get there, because you don’t know what type of gas it could be—it could be the oil, it could be natural gas, you don’t know. Because we’re so close to it, you don’t have time to think. You’re on top of it in a matter of seconds.”

With the memory of the previous fire fresh in mind, Barnett directed his team on safety and focused their efforts on preventing the fire from spreading. With cases and drums of oil fueling the burning warehouse, additional concerns began to arise when the plastic bottles began melting and a tremendous watery, oily run-off began to stream around the structure.

“We did contact TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) and got Public Works and stormwater involved to start damming and diking to prevent as much water as we could from reaching the drains that would lead to the river,” Barnett said.

With the city at drought level 2, water conservation was also a concern for the fire department, who tried to use minimal and well-directed amounts to extinguish the flames. A foam was also used once the fire was under control, which is interjected with the water and helps it soak into the wood and prevent flare ups.

By 6:30 a.m., crews had the fire under control and the next shift came in to continue putting out hot areas. Even with crews working non-stop for the past several hours, it could take a couple of days to fully extinguish the smoldering areas.

“We’ve got equipment over here to start tearing this floor apart and get down to where the fire could have gotten under in the floor,” Barnett explains. “Otherwise, we’ll be there for days and just throwing water at it.”

Over 30 firemen, EMS responders and additional personnel responded to the fire this morning. After an hour and a half of fighting, the first crew, led by Barnett, had it under control.

Estimates of the affected area describe up to 2,000 square feet or more being charred. The building itself was completely destroyed, and as of yet, the cause is not known. Investigators are working to determine the cause and starting point of the fire, however are unsure that it will be possible due to the severity of damage.

Barnett says drought conditions and the state of the structures are not contributing factors, and that this time of year fires are particularly common as people begin heating their homes regularly and units are left unattended.

The public is advised to regularly check and service all heating units and to leave areas around space heaters free of combustibles to help minimize fire outbreaks this season.

The warehouse district is common location for fires in any city due to the chemicals and equipment stored there, and there has been no correlation identified between this and previous fires.