SCRANTON, Pa. — Thick white smoke could be seen for miles, pouring out of a salt storage warehouse along Birch Street in Scranton.
Firefighters responded to the Schoenberg Salt Warehouse just before 11 a.m. Wednesday. Schoenberg Companies, which is headquartered in North Carolina, describes itself online as a distributor of food and industrial salts, food ingredients and specialty chemicals. They service much of the East Coast, according to the company.
Scranton Fire Chief John Judge tells Newswatch 16 that battling the flames was made even more difficult because of what is stored inside the property, "Anytime you deal with a warehouse fire, the contents can be an issue. You know, this is a warehouse facility that has salt packaged salt for like grocery stores. So a lot of cardboards, the layout."
The fire chief says all workers at the plant made it out safely.
Due to the difficult conditions, all the crews were pulled out of the building and instead focused on dousing the fire from the outside.
"If you look at the building, where it's at and situated, we just had to get crews positioned in the right area so that we can cover all areas of the warehouse," said Chief Judge, Scranton Fire Department.
Due to smoke conditions and concerns over air quality from the nearby fire businesses in the surrounding area, even South Scranton Intermediate School was forced to close its doors and send workers and students home early.
Students from nearby South Scranton Intermediate School were dismissed just before noon because of those air quality concerns.
"We have to be, you know, cautious of our surroundings," said Sherry Sakosky.
Sherry Sakosky lives just a few houses away from the salt plant.
She took all the fans out of her windows to make sure the smoke stayed out.
"My cell phone starts going off and all my friends texted me calling me. 'Are you ok? Is everything all right?'. So I hurry up, get off of work. I come outside to look, and I see nothing but fire trucks, everything here, smoke everywhere," Sakosky said.
Deputy Chief Hallowich with the Scranton Fire Department says the building is a total loss and is expected to be taken down sometime in the next few days.
A cause is still under investigation.