Massive Four Alarm Fire In Watsonville Storage Facility

The fire sparked in a back room at Apple Growers Ice & Cold Storage Co., at 850 W. Beach St., around 3:30 p.m on Wednesday 4/20/2011. The blaze is a challenge for fire crews. The massive building, about 100 yards long and a block wide, was constructed in the 1920s using heavy timbers, solid concrete and cork—which is packed into the walls to keep the facility cool.

The flames ignited in a back room packed with Martinelli’s apple cider. In fact, most of the building was full of apple juice from the company, which has a manufacturing facility across the street.  Heavy smoke billowed from the cavernous building for more than an hour as fire crews from Salinas to Scotts Valley got in place.

About two hours in, three ladder trucks lined up along the roof-line of the building. The first sprayed water onto the smoldering structure as a half-dozen firefighters used to the second truck’s ladder to get onto the roof. The roof burst into flames, shooting fire at least 20 feet into the air while black smoke billowed towards town. The firefighters retreated from the roof, repositioned the truck and used its ladder to shoot a second stream of water onto the fire. As the fire pushed through the building, the third ladder truck set up on West Beach Street to hose down the flames licking through the aging structure. At the high point, 16 fire engines, three trucks and a small legion of brass from every most every fire department in the region. The cause of the fire was unclear Wednesday night.

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