The Houston area witnessed a significant emergency response this morning as the Houston Fire Department addressed a severe blaze at a drywall warehouse. As per KHOU's report, the incident, which escalated to a 3-alarm fire, occurred near US 290 in northwest Houston, specifically on McAllister Road, close to the intersection with Mangum Street. Houston TranStar traffic cameras captured images of smoke rising prominently against the city skyline, an indicator of the fire's intensity.
Meteorologist Chita Craft pointed out that strong south-to-north winds made things harder for firefighters by possibly spreading the flames or smoke. The cause of the fire was still under investigation, and it wasn’t clear yet if anyone had been hurt. Even without confirmed details, the fire drew a lot of attention from nearby residents and businesses, as reported by KHOU.
Simultaneous coverage from Eyewitness News included commentary from Ben Riddle, an employee at North Side Electric Motors, whose workplace is situated across the street from the Olympia Drywall Company warehouse. "Our business is right across the street, so we're definitely feeling the heat. We started hearing pretty loud booms, structural supports going in that building. We went inside, shut our doors, and kind of waited it out. We're still in there working now. Thankfully, we still have power. We're definitely lucky," Riddle said.
Riddle's detailed account elucidated the sequence of events as the fire progressed, he described initial signs of trouble as smoke venting out, followed by flames that intensified and eventually burst through those vents, he added that a bay door opened on the building's back side appeared to have exacerbated the smoke ejaculation, with it billowing out significantly "Early on, there was just a lot of smoke. There were not a lot of flames immediately. But kind of as it picked up, flames started bursting out of the vents. I think they opened the bay door on the back of the building because a lot of smoke started billowing out there," Riddle conveyed to Eyewitness News.
