Firefighters Battle Hot Spots into the Night

About twenty minutes after Cranston firefighters arrived to take on the blaze inside Metro Inc. at 30 Bedson Road, the roof fell in.

“The fire was going through the roof, pretty much, when we got here,” Deputy Fire Chief Kevin Morris said.

Morris said about 50 firefighters responded to the call off Elmwood Avenue, spending about five hours sifting through the debris to get to the source of the blaze. At one point, he said, they needed to use an excavator to remove pieces of the roof from the flames.

Firefighters were ordered out of the structure before the collapse as they dealt with exposure problems and the risk of the fire spreading to nearby buildings, according to earlier reports.

By about 10 p.m., Morris said, the fire was just about out, and they were spending their time searching for hot spots. That was an effort he said would likely take the rest of the night 

WPRI.com, which interviewed the owners of the building and Metro Inc., which leases the space, reported Metro had rented the space for about five years.

Morris said the materials in the building were varied. Among the debris piled in front of the spot were bent poles and sheet metal. Inside, a small flame sparked back up at about 10:30 p.m. and firefighters went back in to douse it.

Morris said the fire department sent six engines, three ladder trucks, four rescues and a hazmat truck to the scene.