SCRANTON -- Crews are preparing to tear down the warehouse in Scranton that partially collapsed overnight during a devastating fire.
The owners of Sandone Tire called 911 Wednesday evening because they saw small streams of smoke coming from the warehouse elevator shaft.
Now most of that building is now rubble, the tire fire is still burning, and firefighters expect this to continue for a few days.
Many people in Scranton woke up to the smell of burning rubber as plumes of smoke spread from the Sandone Tire warehouse on Wyoming Avenue for hours on end.
Owner Mike Sandone says he never could have imagined this.
"Pretty devastating," said Sandone. "It was something that we didn't expect was going to be as bad as this when the initial smoke was coming out of the building at the far end, and somehow during the course of the night it just seemed to spread and mushroom and move over."
Firefighters were called to the Sandone Tire warehouse around 5 p.m. Wednesday. After midnight, the building was engulfed and the roof and two walls gave way.
From the rooftop of a building directly next to Sandone Tire's warehouse, you can see what firefighters are dealing with now, how much damage there is, how risky the structure is, and the fire still burning down below.
"When tires burn they burn hot," said Scranton Assistant Fire Chief Jim Floryshak. "I'm not sure the outcome would have been different if we had better access, things like that."
Assistant Chief Floryshak said a demolition crew will slowly tear down the warehouse while firefighters, working outside the collapse zone, will continue trying to put out the flames.
Four Scranton firefighters were treated for breathing in too much smoke after they got lost inside the warehouse that was once a cold storage facility.
"Worcester crossed my mind 100 times last night."
In 1999, six firefighters were killed fighting a fire at a cold storage warehouse in Worcester, Massachusetts. The circumstances of that story are eerily similar but fortunately, not the ending.
"They never went home to their families in the morning. That building, that cold storage facility in Worcester, is so similar to this building, it's scary."
The Department of Environmental Protection has been on scene most of the day, along with firefighters and demo crews. They have been running air quality tests throughout the day. Officials say they have not detected any harmful chemicals in the air.