Fire marshals are looking at every detail to determine what caused a medical supply warehouse to go up in flames.
Smoke engulfed the air around 7th street and Beaumont in McAllen Tuesday evening.
This, as McAllen firefighters worked to contain a fire that was blazing in a medical supply building.
"We were fighting the fire through the inside, but once the fire ventilated itself, then we had to go into a defensive attack. We had to fight the fire from the outside," said Rene Alaniz spokesman of the McAllen Fire Department.
Alaniz said at about 4:45 p.m. Tuesday evening, a 9-1-1 call alerted firefighters that there was a building on fire at 7th street and Beaumont.
John Guajardo works next door to the building he said he was one of those who called 9-1-1 about the fire.
"Just smoke coming out of the garage doors where all the black is at just smoke coming out of those areas," said Guajardo.
Alaniz said there was heavy smoke coming from the building and because of the size of the fire, the response was escalated to a two alarm fire and more firefighters were dispatched to the location.
Employees from the Honda dealership next door said they normally park at this buidling, and when they saw the smoke they rushed to get their cars.
"Just all the employees getting their cars out, so hopefully the building didn't go down," said Guajardo.
Alaniz said firefighters worked with the light company to cut all the electicial energy sources in the building, and they worked with the city's public works to help remove debris and block streets especially Business 83.
"We had to lay lines to allow us to get the water we needed to suppress this fire," said Alaniz.
Fire marshalls continue to dig through debris, interview the owners, employees and investigate what could have caused this fire.
"We're not going to leave any stone unturned. Everything needs to be carefully checked, carefully investigated to try to determine what the actual cause of this fire was," said Alaniz.
For Guajardo, he said it was a scary ordeal at first, but once he saw the firefighters take control of the situation, he started taking video of the scene.He said it's not something you see everyday.
"The fire...the flame. It was pretty big. Smoke was very high up in the air and going down the street with the wind," said Guajardo.
As onlookers have pictures and videos to keep as memories of the blaze, firefighters have their own that they say could help determine the cause of the blaze.
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