At 11:36 PM on Saturday, February 13, Station 49 Fire & EMS, along with assisting companies, was dispatched to the 5800 block of Old Philadelphia Pike (Route 340), in the area of Mount Vernon Road, for a commercial building fire.
Lancaster County Communications advised the responding units that the reporting party heard crackling inside the building. did not see any flames, but that there was smoke from the doors and that they could see black around the windows on the garage doors.
As units were marking up on the air and responding, 911 was now reporting that the caller was changing the address to the 5000 block of Old Philadelphia Pike in the area of Hershey Church Road; approximately 3.5 miles from the original location. Units redirected and make the response to the updated location.
Units arrived at 11:46 with a single story commercial trucking facility, with smoke showing from the eaves of the building. Eventually, fire would break through the roof of the building, causing embers to fly over the adjoining homes, causing some concern with exposure issues.
Additional resources were requested to the scene for additional water and also additional manpower due to the harsh atmospheric conditions.
The fire was marked under control at 1:52 AM, with the final units clearing the scene at 5:49 AM.
Damage was estimated at $285,000 to the building and $165,000 to the contents inside; and it is believed an overloaded electric breaker box ignited the fire.
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We would like to thank and give credit to all of those volunteers (over 100) who gave up a nice warm bed and braved the cold and ice to get the job done. The overnight temperatures plunged into the single digits, and everything froze, making a hard job, even harder.