A five-alarm fire is underway May 20 at a vacant building near the intersection of West Hampton Avenue and North 32nd Street on Milwaukee’s north side.
Around 6:12 p.m., dispatchers from the Department of Emergency Communications began receiving reports of smoke and fire at the building at 4777 N. 32nd St., Milwaukee Fire Chief Aaron Lipski told the Journal Sentinel.
Fire crews arrived under five minutes later and saw extremely heavy fire and smoke on multiple floors, Lipski said.
The call was immediately made for firefighters to not go inside the building with there not being “a hoseline in the world” that could protect them from that much fire, as well as the potential of collapse, Lipski said. Very early on in the fire, the whole southwest corner of the building collapsed.
With step cracks and fissions along the brick lines on the other three sides of the building, indicating “imminent collapse,” Lipski said, everyone was being kept back. Aerial ladders are providing reach to get the water as close to the fire as possible without exposing firefighters to “needless risk.”
The building is a mill-style construction, which is “a very dangerous type of building once it’s heavily involved in fire” because the floors, support columns, beams, walls and ceiling are made of wood, Lipski explained.
“It throws off a tremendous amount of radiant heat, but also, structural support is burning away as it burns,” he said.
No injuries were immediately reported and no reports of anyone being inside the building, Lipski said.
While Lipski said he didn’t know what caused the fire, he noted that no gas or electricity is connected to the building.
“The chances of something just, after all these years, just starting itself on fire are pretty slim,” he said. “And, this much fire that quick during an evening commute home on a major thoroughfare, it leaves some questions to be answered.”
The Fire Investigation Unit is on the scene May 20, along with the Milwaukee Police Department.
The bulk of rigs on scene were expected to remain for the next few hours, Lipski said around 8 p.m., with companies staying there throughout the night on “fire watch.”
“This is an all-hands-on-deck thing,” Lipski said.
Fires are ranked in severity by the number of alarms called for them – from one to five – with five being the highest. Each alarm tier designates the number and type of apparatus dispatched to address a particular fire. Five-alarm fires are typically rare and entail a huge response, according to previous Journal Sentinel reporting.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Five-alarm fire breaks out on Milwaukee’s north side, fire department says
Reporting by Hannah Kirby and David Clarey, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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