Newcastle blaze destroys dozens of vehicles in industrial area

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Firefighters have stopped an industrial fire spreading to more buildings in Newcastle. Dozens of cars and an auto electrical business have been destroyed.

Transcript

00:00 A fire broke out in an auto electrical warehouse in the early hours of this morning.

00:07 More than 40 firefighters were called to this place.

00:11 They had been battling the fire in the early hours of the morning but they have managed

00:16 to now get it under control.

00:19 Fire and Rescue have told us that there were about 30 cars within the warehouse.

00:25 It's not clear exactly whether or not all of them have been destroyed.

00:28 However, a number of them have been burnt by fire or badly damaged due to the intense

00:34 heat that was within this warehouse.

00:36 What's quite incredible is you'll be able to see that the roof of this warehouse has

00:42 caved in.

00:43 You can see from the outside it's very badly damaged and the business is all but destroyed.

00:48 However, there are several buildings surrounding the warehouse that look untouched and Fire

00:54 and Rescue says that they have managed to contain the blaze to that one warehouse despite

01:00 the fact that there are many other buildings butting up against it.

01:05 Firefighters were working on this still when we arrived a couple of hours ago.

01:10 There was firefighters up on a platform above the fire truck.

01:13 They were still putting out the smoulder.

01:15 However, there are no flames and they do expect that they will have it fully put out very

01:21 shortly.

01:22 We spoke to Fire and Rescue earlier and they gave us some updates on where things are at.

01:28 The radiant heat was extremely intense.

01:32 Firefighters did a wonderful job.

01:33 They were under extremely trying conditions to get on top of this fire.

01:37 Cars burn freely, burn hot and can push onto exposures or cause fire spread quickly.

01:43 There were concerns about the toxic smoke that was emitting from this fire in the early

01:48 hours of the morning.

01:50 Nearby residents were told to close their doors, their windows and their vents and much

01:56 of this area has been taped off.

01:59 Things are slowly starting to return to normal.

02:02 We can expect a presence from firefighters and police throughout the day as they continue

02:07 to investigate exactly what happened.

02:10 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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