FRESNO, Calif. (KMPH) -
"Major disaster, it looks major. I haven't seen anything like it. Look at the cloud," Isidro Alvarado said.
You could see it from anywhere in Fresno.
"At first I thought it was a storm cloud, but it seemed out of place. So I looked and it was just kind of a plume rising up," Mark Pfeiffer, who saw the smoke all the way from Fresno State, said.
"It's dangerous. It's bad. Look at what it's doing to the sky," Courtney Ward said as she watched the flames.
"I was mowing the lawn and I saw black smoke. I got surprised. I thought it was a house on fire," Alvarado said.
It wasn't a house, but the Soex fabric recycling plant that went up in flames.
And now we know employees started the fire while grinding metal.
It quickly spread to a giant stack of fabric bales.
Before long it swallowed up two acres of the business, including a 7,000 square foot warehouse.
"It's huge. It's such a small area and it's such a big impact. And we're in a valley. It's got to be bad for the smog," Ward said.
Not only was the fire enormous, but firefighters had to deal with nearly triple–digit temperatures and changing wind directions.
"It's a tough fire, it's hot. And we've just got to make those rotations for our firefighters so they don't get hurt," John Dominguez, CAL FIRE/ Fresno County Fire, said.
Fire officials say they had problems getting water.
There are several fire hydrants on the property and it is the property owner's responsibility to maintain those hydrants and make sure they're working.
But when firefighters got on scene, some of those hydrants were not working. So firefighters had to lay hose across the street and hook up to hydrants not at the business.
"I don't know why they're not in service. Usually when the facility has hydrants, they're maintained by the facility," Dominguez said.
Fire officials say this business has had a similar fire in the past.
Now the owner could be fined since the employees who started this one didn't have the proper tools in place to put a fire out if one started while they were working.
It took nearly 70 firefighters from Fresno County, Fresno City, CAL FIRE and the Selma Fire Department to put out the fire.
Fire officials don't know yet how much the damage will cost.
