Smoke from the massive fire at “Extra Space storage” in Valrico could easily be seen from a distance as firefighters tried to contain the flames that consumed dozens of storage units.
It wasn’t an easy job.
Nicole Revette with Hillsborough County Fire Rescue said, “each unit shares a common attic space, so once we introduce oxygen by lifting the front door of the unit that allows the oxygen to fuel the fire so we have to make sure we don’t open to many units at the same time in order not to feed the fire.”
Nearly a hundred firefighters spent hours battling the three-alarm blaze.
Two of them had to taken out by a stretcher with non-life threatening injuries.
Word spread quickly among people renting out units.
Stephanie Browning said, “I got the phone call at 6 this morning storage unit is on fire, i was like what, okay i am getting in the car.”
Renters of the more than a hundred units that were damaged by smoke, water or flames started showing up at the facility.
Monica Randolph rented one of the units she said, “it is very upsetting and disturbing my daughter was a little distraught this morning when she heard about it because a lot of their sentimental value was in the storage as well so it is a bit devastating.”
Mary Hartzog’s daughter had just filled up three units with personal items.
Hartzog said, “she had it in my place and then decided it was making my place too much, so she put it in storage and this then this happened, i feel bad.”
Investigators are looking at surveillance video to see if it will provide them any clues as they try to determine how the fire started.
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