Investigators are looking the cause of a 4-alarm fire at a vacant warehouse on Westmoreland St. in North Philadelphia early Saturday. NBC10’s Jesse Gary says it took 4 hours to get the blaze under control and SEPTA has suspended service on the Manayunk/Norristown line because of the fire’s proximity to the tracks.
Flames tore through a warehouse in the city's Tioga section early Saturday causing SEPTA to suspend one of their Regional Rail lines for the remainder of the weekend.
The fire broke out at the 65,000 square-foot warehouse that was once used as a metal manufacturing plant on the 2400-block of W. Westmoreland St. just before around 2:20 a.m.
Flames continued to shoot from the structure Saturday morning causing a portion of the building's roof to collapse and the partial collapse of a wall toward the back of the structure, said fire officials.
The flames have also caused the suspension of SEPTA's Manayunk/Norristown Line through the weekend and detours on bus routes 33, 48 and 60 until further notice, said officials from the transportation company.
"It's very hard to get the upper hand because normally what we do is what we call surround the ground so we try and get water around the whole building and attack it from all angles so we can put the fire out," said Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Derrick Sawyer. "Because we didn't have access to the total building because of the railroad tracks, that's one section of the building that we couldn't have access too."
No injuries were reported and the cause of the fire is unknown.
