COMBINED LOCKS, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – It took 26 hours, 67 departments and 700 emergency responders to put out a fire that engulfed a Combined Locks paper warehouse on Friday.
Emergency responders and residents say they’ve never seen anything like it. They are thankful it wasn’t worse.
Ted Jahnke watched from down the Fox River as smoke billowed above the Warehouse Specialists Inc. building on Friday.
A part of him worried about his house, not even 500 feet away. But flames didn’t leave WSI property, so Jahnke decided not to evacuate.
“I lucked out. Two houses away was a wall of smoke.”
Combined Locks Fire and Rescue says the fire started in a semi-trailer that had just entered the loading dock of the building.
“There were employees there when it happened, so it was witnessed. So, there’s nothing foul play suspected or suspicious,” said Fire Chief Ken Wiedenbauer. “It looks like it was just an accidental start,”
Wiedenbauer says the cause of the fire is still under investigation. But tells FOX 11 he knows it was paper bales that kick-started flames.
“It’s shredded into small pieces and bailed together using a wire to hold it together. When that breaks apart, it turns into very small pieces that are very flammable, and there’s a lot of surface area to burn.”
Wiedenbauer says if it weren’t for a WSI employee shutting the firewalls as soon as they smelled smoke, the fire would have been out of control.
Still, it took 6 million gallons of water from the municipal water supply and Fox River to put out the flames.
“We average one structure fire a year if we’re lucky. Very safety-oriented village — we hit fire prevention really hard with the residents and the kids and we feel like it pays off.”
Wiedenbauer says WSI always passes random fire inspections, but due to the nature of the paper business, accidents like this happen.
Combined Locks Fire and Rescue says it hopes to release the cause and cost of the fire by the end of the week.
