Fire torches Coventry industrial building, burning asbestos

By: Bianca Buono

bbuono@abc6.com

Smoke was pouring from a building on Flat River Road in Coventry on Thursday, hours after a fire broke out late Wednesday night.

Fire crews were greeted by flames shooting out of the roof of the building higher than the surrounding trees.

They were able to contain the fire within about 30 minutes but it’s what burned that left them concerned.

Central Coventry Fire Chief Peter Lamb says, "We could actually see fire in the sky the building was completely involved when we arrived. Our fire fighters stayed out of the building obviously there was nobody in the building at the time. It’s a commercial building."

The building houses three small businesses: a car storage company, a landscaping business, and an asbestos removal company, the latter making the jobs of fire crews much more complicated.

"We had some material that contains asbestos, part of the asbestos removal company, so obviously that’s a concern to firefighters."

The highly toxic mineral is known to cause mesothelioma cancer and is placed in bags by removal companies.

The problem is that the large dumpster next to the building where those bags were thrown out also caught fire, and once crews realized it contained asbestos they had to stop adding water to it so they wouldn’t create contaminated runoff.

Instead, they let it burn.

"Asbestos is generally not airborne. The only thing that would make it airborne is the fire, persay, so it’s contained to the dumpster. We’re relatively confident that’s okay."

As far as the building that caught fire, only half of it still stands. Fire officials have deemed it a total loss.

Thankfully, they were able to stop the fire before it spread to the other nearby businesses and apartments.

"…It was not an issue in the fire."

Investigators are still working to determine what caused the fire. They say the air and water in this area is safe.

©WLNE-TV / ABC6 2016