PHOTOS: Massive warehouse fire triggers explosions, evacuations near Atlantic Station

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Massive warehouse fire triggers explosions, evacuations near Atlantic Station

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May 21, 2021 Atlanta: Firefighters continues to pour water on a stubborn warehouse fire throughout Friday morning, May 21, 2021. A massive overnight fire at a northwest Atlanta warehouse at one point grew so intense that it threatened the firefighters battling it from several stories in the air. The crews had to evacuate their ladder trucks when flames got too close, Atlanta fire spokesman Sgt. Cortez Stafford told Channel 2 Action News. The blaze was under control Friday morning, but crews were still dousing hot spots at the storage warehouse in the 400 block of Bishop Street. Huge flames, a series of loud explosions and heavy plumes of smoke could be seen and heard in the area west of Atlantic Station for several hours overnight. The fire spread to adjacent warehouses in the business strip and threatened a nearby apartment complex before it was contained. “Flames were above the rooftops,” witness Matthew Payne told Channel 2. “It was one of the craziest things I’ve seen in a while.” The fire was reported about 11:25 p.m. Thursday. It took 75 firefighters and multiple apparatus to bring it under control, Stafford told the news station. The first arriving crews were unable to get inside to check for injuries until they knocked down the flames. “There was all the explosions happening from inside the building,” Stafford said from the scene. “Unknown what those were, perhaps propane tanks.” Stafford said they had to pull their ladder trucks back as the fire intensified. “Because that fire moved so fast up under their ladder, and we had fire coming up under them, so they had to evacuate the ladder pretty quickly and move the apparatus because it was about to catch on fire,” he said. During the height of the blaze, firefighting efforts were further hampered by an impatient driver trying to access the Radiant West Midtown apartments, the fire department said on Twitter. Crews were “in the crucial phase” of preventing fire from spreading to the co

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Credit: Courtesy Atlanta Life Insurance Company

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