ST. LOUIS – A massive fire is wreaking havoc at an abandoned building in St. Louis. Crews with IDOT and MoDOT worked with the St. Louis Fire Department to shut down the Stan Musial Bridge Monday due to a building fire directly next to Interstate 70. The bridge closure is expected to last for two days.
More than 40 firefighters have responded to an ongoing fire near the Old North St. Louis neighborhood, which is what they call a “nightmare situation.”
According to a battalion chief on scene, crews received a call of a second-alarm fire around 1 p.m. Monday at an old storage building in the 1800 block of N. Broadway, which is directly next to the Stan Musial Bridge.
The bridge closure began around 6 p.m. Monday. The fear with this fire being so close to the highway is that if it were to collapse, it could potentially fall onto the highway.
“It’s a very dangerous building…probably started by unhoused individuals. Last night was our first cool night of the year, so they were probably in there burning fire trying to stay warm, and now this is the result,” St. Louis Fire Department Chief Dennis Jenkerson said.
No firefighters are being sent into the building due to a lack of windows in addition to the heavy insulation inside. The battalion chief noted that they will be waiting to see if the fire breaks through or if the building will collapse.
“There’s a lot of open shafts. We actually were fighting the fire off of rope to make sure we could get back to the entry point. After about two to three hours, it became very dangerous. The smoke conditions and the heat intensified,” Jenkerson said.
The firefighters have been using three hose lines to battle the flames, which are continuing to travel through gaps across the building.
The flames have engulfed the building, and thick smoke is blowing into downtown St. Louis, making conditions dangerous. Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge will likely remain closed for at least Tuesday and Wednesday, but it could be even longer than that, according to St. Louis Fire Captain Garon Mosby.
Captain Mosby says they’re now taking a defensive approach from the outside. They say nothing is off the table to get this under control. “We finally have some visible fire. It’s gonna be a while,” Mosby says. “This is a very old building, very large building, ton of insulation inside. We’re a long way from the finish line.”
Drivers between Missouri and Illinois are being urged to use the McKinley or Martin Luther King Bridges as alternate routes.
Crews will continue to work throughout Tuesday, but as Captain Mosby said, this will be a long battle. Authorities say the bridge and Broadway will remain closed until it’s safe. This is the second fire at this building this year. The last one back in July took two days to extinguish.
