Unhealthy air quality in California city as huge warehouse fire burns for 3rd day

TRACY, Calif. (AP) — Authorities in a Northern California city urged people sensitive to smoking to stay indoors as firefighters spent a third day Saturday battling a blaze at a massive medical equipment warehouse.

Air quality on the south side of Tracy, a city of 100,000 where the Medline warehouse fire has been burning since Thursday, was in the “unhealthy” range. weather monitors.

Firefighters expect the fire inside the building to remain smoky for the next few days due to lengthy efforts to extinguish it, Southern San Joaquin County Fire Chief Randall Bradley said in a statement.

The local fire chief investigated and officials met with company representatives, structural engineers and others to evaluate the building, Bradley said.

Plans were being made for employees to pick up their vehicles from the area. Meanwhile, firefighters urged people to stay away from the area and not to touch or move debris from the fire.

Medline is a major provider of medical-surgical products such as latex gloves, masks and surgical instruments.

The fire at the 1 million square foot (93,000 square meter) warehouse about 55 miles (88.5 kilometers) east of San Francisco sent embers flying for miles.

Poorly functioning sprinklers and hydrants with little or no flow hindered firefighters’ efforts. It was stated that the problem was not caused by the city’s water resources, but by the fire extinguishing system of the facility.

Firefighters said no problems were found when an outside company tested the sprinkler system in January.