Heavy smoke seen as crews battle Scranton business fire

SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — Firefighters battled a heavy smoked fire at a business in Scranton Wednesday morning.

“You could see it for miles, we were coming down from Dickson City, and you could see a big cloud of smoke,” said Braden McCammon from Scranton.

“It looked bad, it looked bad, it looked like a bomb was set off or something,” said Sherry Williams of Scranton.

Plumes of thick black smoke billowed across the Scranton sky Wednesday morning.

Scranton firefighters were called to Schoenberg Companies on the 200 block of Birch Street, with flames coming through the roof that later collapsed after firefighters were told to evacuate.

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A difficult fire to fight. Firefighters were stationed all around the building, pouring large amounts of water hoping to get to the seed of the fire

“At some point we we make our way in safely, but the building is pretty well compromised at this point. It’s lost the roof,” stated Chief John Judge IV of the Scranton Fire Department.

Scranton Fire Chief Judge says the cardboard and other contents inside the warehouse are feeding the flames.

“Table salt was the majority of the product that was in their boxed table salt ready for packaging for supermarkets,” explained Chief Judge.

The five employees of the salt warehouse made it out safely.

The DEP was contacted to test the runoff going into the roaring brook below the South Washington Avenue Bridge.

South Scranton Intermediate School was dismissed at 10:40 a.m. due to the chemical fire, Scranton School District officials stated.

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