Firefighters battled a multi-alarm fire late into Sunday night that ravaged the six-year-old Dietz & Watson warehouse on Coopertown Road in Delanco, which stores meats and cheeses from company factories in three states.
The distribution center is about 300,000 square feet, the size of five football fields.
The blaze remained out of control as of 9 p.m., and crews were expected to fight the fire well into the night, according to Burlington County’s fire and EMS dispatch center.
The fire broke out at the Dietz & Watson factory on Cooperstown Road in Delanco around 2 p.m. Thick, black smoke could be seen billowing from the roof of the facility for miles away.
Officials say the fire is currently contained between the trusses and the solar panels on the roof. There have been two explosions so far and at least one wall has come down.
“It’s just an intense fire,” said Delanco Fire Chief Ron Holt. “It’s going to take some time and we don’t know what it’s going to do. The problem we have with this fire is the whole roof has solar panels on it, so we can’t get on the roof to fight it.”
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In 2010, the company installed more than 7,000 solar power modules, which officials claimed would reduce the facility’s energy use by nearly 20 percent. Buildings with solar power systems “can present a variety of significant hazards” for firefighters including electrocution, according to the National Fire Protection Association.
The Burlington County hazmat team was called in to test the air quality and say that it is safe. There have been no evacuations at this time. So far, no injuries have been reported.
Sandy Iwanicki, who lives near the warehouse, said she initially thought a plane had crashed.
“It looked to me like the kind of scene you would see if a plane crashed the black smoke was immense it was amazing,” said Iwanicki.
Fire officials are concerned that the water and foam being using to fight the blaze could cause the roof to collapse. All firefighters have been called out of the building as a safety precaution.
“The hazard right now I’m worried about is whether I will have a structural collapse,” said Holt.
Officials said firefighters were initially hampered by water supply problems, and crews were ready to use the Rancocas Creek as a resource.