Fire crews remain on the scene of a massive fire on Far East Side

Madison firefighters remain on the scene today of a huge, scorching fire that engulfed an apartment building under construction on the Far East Side on Friday night and sent charred debris flying for miles around.

The blaze in the 105 unit apartment building in the 500 block of Apollo Way appeared to be out Saturday morning but pallets of building materials continued to smolder.

The materials are "pretty densely packed. Sometimes it takes a while to burn out," Madison Fire Department spokeswoman Lori Wirth said.

The blaze covered "between one and two acres, and that was just the fire ground," she said.

Wirth said one person driving along Interstate 39/90 near the fire reported the auto's temperature registering at 200 degrees. Another caller to the 911 dispatch center reported seeing debris from the fire falling at Ella's Deli, 2902 E. Washington Ave., about five miles away, she said.

The searing, massive fire sent billowing smoke across much of Madisons Far East Side Friday night, but no injuries were reported.

The fire, at the intersection of Lisa Ann Drive and Apollo Way, just east of Interstate 39/90 and north of Cottage Grove Road, began around 7:30 p.m. and was about 90 percent under control within two hours, Wirth said.

Firefighters could feel the heat a block away as they arrived to find the top two stories of the building engulfed in flames, Wirth said.

When the first fire crew arrived and hooked up to a hydrant, the blaze was so hot that "plastic on the engine was melting and window glass was breaking," Wirth said.

Temperatures reached more than 250 degrees, she said, andfirefighters had to hose each other down so they could do their job. "The radiant heat was really something," Wirth said.

Read the original post:
Fire crews remain on the scene of a massive fire on Far East Side