Workers demolish South Side warehouse after intense fire

More than 60 Pittsburgh firefighters responded to a massive three-alarm blaze at a warehouse in the South Side on Sunday night.

The fire at Appliance Warehouse in the 500 block of Bingham Street broke out just before 7 p.m. No one was inside when the fire started.

"We heard a pretty loud bang," said witness Alex Giuliann. "About 40- to 50-foot flames shooting out of the building."

People next door at attraction Escape the Room found their recreational pursuit suddenly became a serious reality.

“My coworker said, ‘You need to tell the people who are in the room to evacuate immediately because the building caught fire,’” said employee Olga Romanoba.

It took hours for firefighters to get the fire under control, in part because a section of the building collapsed because of the intense flames.

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Chief Darryl Jones said he did not want to send firefighters into the warehouse, which was filled with home appliances like refrigerators and stoves, because of that structural instability. That forced crews into a defensive posture to prevent the fire from spreading to nearby buildings.

“The building is heavily damaged so we’re still keeping our guys out of there because we don’t want anyone to get in there and start operating moving stuff around and there’s a structural collapse,” Jones said.

Duquesne Light cut power to the area at the fire department’s request, a move that turned off the electricity to about 1,500 customers at one point, the company said.

The City Theater’s storage facility, which houses thousands of play props, including antique chairs and tables, is next door to the scene of the fire. Embers came close to their warehouse, but the theater property master told Channel 11 all is well – a reassuring message, because the props can't be replaced.

“Impossible,” Louise Phetteplace said. “It’s a lifetime, many lifetimes, of collecting props.”

For Peter Hawkins, who runs an Airbnb across the street from Appliance Warehouse, the flames brought moments of uncertainty.

“We were a little concerned when the flames were shooting out of the window halfway across the road,” he said. “Flames were coming across on the powerlines. That was a bit of a concern.”

Firefighters got the fire under control around 10 p.m. Jones said officials didn’t initially know what started the fire or where it originated.

No injuries were reported.

Crews began demolishing the building on Monday.

Cox Media Group