Warehouse Blaze Prompts Evacuations

Residents from three blocks around evacuated their homes Thursday night after flames erupted from a business in Folcroft, Delaware County.

An automatic alarm shortly after 8 p.m. alerted firefighters to the blaze in a warehouse for Bullen Industries, a cleaning products supplier located on Delmar Drive.

"Right now we have a warehouse about 50 by 50 full of cardboard boxes, plastic containers,materials, such things like that," Fire chief Bill Matthews said. "... We breached the building and founf heavy smoke conditions. Right now, we're in a surround-and-drown operation, and we're trying to get control of this situation."

Officials initially reported that chemicals could be inside the building, but Matthews said shortly before 11 p.m., "We have hazardous material crews on scene. They are testing the water and testing the air, and as of right now I'm told everything is negative. But they are here for standby in case of something."

No injuries were reported at last report, but there have been evactuations.

Police Chief Bob Ruskowski told Fox 29 News, "It's about a three-block area. There's a lot of houses that are behind the building. ... The way the wind's blowing, we evacuated those houses that were receiving heavy smoke in the air. ... And some of the families came here to the firehouse. There's no danger of anything in the air, but there's just a lot of smoke, so we didn't want the residents to have to breathe that."

Earlier, firefighters were ordered off of the building's roof.

Stay with Fox 29 news and MyFoxPhilly.com for more on this developing story.