Eight people suffered minor injuries Tuesday in a fire at a New York Police Department warehouse that houses DNA evidence from crime scenes as well as cars, e-bikes and motor scooters, police and fire officials said.
The fire at the Erie Basin Auto Pound, a low warehouse situated atop a long, curving breakwater on the Brooklyn waterfront, broke out at around 10:30 a.m., FDNY Chief of Department John Hodgens said.
The volume of fire quickly overwhelmed firefighters who had gone inside to battle the blaze and then had to retreat and fight it from the outside, Hudgens said. The effort included drones as well as boats spraying water into the warehouse from the harbor, he said.
The fire, which sent a plume of smoke that could be seen for miles (kilometers), was still going Tuesday afternoon and might take days to bring under control, Hodgens said.
Hodgens said three firefighters, three emergency medical workers and two civilians suffered minor injuries.
Police Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, who joined Hudgens at a briefing at the fire scene, said the facility is used to store DNA evidence from crime scenes as well as e-bikes, motorbikes and cars. “It’s mainly evidence but we store other things there as well,” he said.
The police have sometimes used the warehouse for public events in which they have crushed illegal motorcycles, scooters and ATVs seized from people operating them illegally.
Maddrey said that once the fire is under control, police property specialists will go inside and see what has been destroyed and what can be salvaged. “We don’t know the severity of the damage inside,” he said.
(AP / YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
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6 Responses
Years ago I was a frequent visitor to the Red Hook tow compound to both retrieve my towed cards and to attend the auctions of impounded vehicles. I wonder if the owners of the vehicles destroyed in today’s fire have any claim against the City.
BH all the gneiva they do to people towing cars there bh
Every car 🚗 owner whose car was destroyed by the greedy police must sue the wicked police 🚔 as well as having all their fines automatically dismissed.
Well, not exactly. It’s US, the dumb stupid gullible taxpayers that will be forced to bail out every single one of those vehicle owners.
“ The fire, which sent a plume of smoke that could be seen for miles (kilometers)”
What idiot wrote that?
If you don’t give a number of miles, then miles is just another adjective for very far, and it does not require a conversion to metric even for those who are metrically inclined.
The City of NY needs to be fined for storing hazardous materials , putting FDNY personnel in harms way , just as as they do to the private sector !!!!