What's on fire now?

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KCPowercat
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What's on fire now?

Post by KCPowercat »

Got up this morning to the house smelling like smoke....go outside and there is smoke as far as I can see....anybody know what happened?
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Tin Tin
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What's on fire now?

Post by Tin Tin »

This is what I know which, admittedly, isn't much: At about 2:40am sirens from emergency vehicles from all around the city started going off. I could hear individual sirens start and then fade as the vehicles traveled to wherever they were going. This went on for a solid 20 minutes - just constant, overlapping sirens with, from what I could tell, two helicopters. From my vantage point it sounded like everything was headed toward the Plaza.

I looked out the 10th floor stairwell windows of my building and saw nothing. Went downstairs and outside and smelled smoke. Came in and switched on the tv thinking one of the local channels would've cut in with a report. Nothing. I stayed up flipping through the local channels for an hour and got nothing.

I caught the closing image of Fox News this morning. The aerial shot was of a large, scorched semi-circle, but I couldn't tell what the location was; there appeared to be a grain elevator nearby and lots of railroad tracks. Obviously, not the Plaza or any other densely developed area.

Told you I didn't know much. :)
trailerkid
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What's on fire now?

Post by trailerkid »

Four-alarm fire rages at KC lumberyard

By MARA ROSE WILLIAMS
The Kansas City Star

A four-alarm fire early today heavily damaged Schutte Lumber, 3001 Southwest Blvd. It was the third lumberyard fire in the Kansas City area in the past week.

The Schutte fire was reported at 2:42 a.m., and when firefighters arrived, about half of the three-block lumberyard was in flames.

Four of the yard's five large lumber sheds were destroyed, fire officials said. The showroom was not damaged, but a mobile building containing a sales office burned. The fire also melted two 36-foot flatbed trucks, but did not reach a 5,000-gallon underground gas tank.

Firefighters were still cooling hot spots at 11 a.m.

No damage estimate was available, and no cause had been determined.

Two investigators from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were on the scene. There was no immediate indication of any link to two lumberyard fires last week in Clay County.

Schutte operations manager Matt Brown said he did not know when the business would reopen.

Smoke filled streets and seeped into buildings from downtown to the Country Club Plaza.

The Schutte fire occurred one day after federal investigators announced that separate five-alarm fires that ravaged two family-owned businesses in Clay County were intentionally set.

Authorities think the fires at the Porter Building Supply store in Kearney and the Porter distribution center in Mosby were deliberate acts, but they wouldn't say how they were set or why. Early estimates of the loss were about $2 million.

Paul J. Vido, a special agent of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in charge of the three-day investigation, had said the nature of the fires was suspicious but declined to further elaborate.

"Both were criminal acts," Vido said at a news conference Saturday.

Vido said a 30-member arson task force made up of federal, state, county and local investigators had been formed to gather additional evidence and to interview several persons who may have information about the fires.

He said that investigators wanted to interview several current and former employees and several people who live near the locations, but that no arrests had been made.

About 70 investigators spent three days sorting through mounds of charred debris and twisted metal, trying to determine the cause of the fires.

Vido said there were similarities at both fire scenes, but he wouldn't say what they were. Dogs trained to detect the presence of accelerants found the sources of the fires.

Evidence gathered at fire scenes will be taken to the ATF national laboratory in Rockville, Md., for further analysis, he said.

The first fire was reported at the Porter Building Supply store along Missouri 92 in Kearney at 10:33 p.m. Monday. The second was reported at 12:55 a.m. Tuesday at the Porter distribution center lumberyard on U.S. 69 in Mosby.

Craig Porter, part owner of the family business, said both properties were insured.

"We were pretty sure it was intentionally set, so it wasn't a surprise," Porter said.

Anyone with information about the fires is asked to call the ATF arson task force at (816) 903-3810.
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What's on fire now?

Post by scooterj »

Thanks for posting the info. I was awakened early this morning by the strong smell of wood smoke and thought there was a fire in my building. Went outside and the smoke was so thick I couldn't see buildings more than about 6 blocks away. The only source I could find was the smouldering remains of a homeless person's campfire which of course couldn't have possibly made so much smoke. :D
kcteen
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What's on fire now?

Post by kcteen »

The three fires made national news today (monday). The announcers talked about it briefly on CNN and seemed to make some mob implications. Kindof odd to see this on national news...


KcTeen
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What's on fire now?

Post by KCPowercat »

mob in KC? naaahhhh ;)
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