ELYRIA — A thick haze still hovered above much of the neighborhood surrounding the former General Industries building Friday as Elyria firefighters used aerial ladders to spray water on smoking hot spots.

Much of the sprawling old warehouse property is now just steaming rubble strewn over nearly three city blocks.

Clean-up workers from J.L. Reichert in Elyria gathered at sunrise to scrape scorched bricks and twisted steel shafts off Taylor Street with front-end loaders.

CARL SULLENBERGER / CHRONICLE

Elyria firefighters were on scene again Friday to keep smoldering rubble from igniting with a ladder truck’s nozzle getting as far over the ruins of General Industries as possible.

Though there were no more visible flames, Elyria fire Lt. Greg Willoughby said that slow fires continued to burn under the debris, making the entire property much like a big Fourth of July barbecue pit.

“It’s like a little Ground Zero here,” he said mid-afternoon as firefighters kept pumping steady streams of water onto the mess.

Willoughby said firefighters couldn’t get on top of the rubble because it was simply too dangerous and too hot — in excess of 200 degrees in some spots.

He said tanks of acetone and other flammable materials, along with an oil pit discovered in the center of the property, posed a threat to emergency workers.

Fires feeding on buried fuel and air pockets can’t be extinguished until crews unearth them with heavy machinery, Willoughby said. That could take the better part of a week, and he said they could easily keep burning that long.

Firefighter Dean Marks said burning plastics, which were once produced at the factory, were responsible for the acrid-smelling smoke still hanging in the area.

Acting Fire Chief Joseph Pronesti said firefighters will be at General Industries off and on for the next few days to oversee the cleanup. He said it could take from a week to a month to have the entire site excavated.

“It could take a very long time, and honestly we don’t know how long,” he said. “And with everything happening under all that mess, it could be dangerous.”

The part of the General Industries warehouse that is still standing also shakes every time a train rumbles by on the tracks adjacent to the site, causing worries that the building could collapse, Willoughby said.

Pronesti said the building will have to be razed. A structural engineer is expected to visit the site Tuesday to see whether the structure is safe enough to allow the property owner to salvage industrial equipment inside.

After he gets the engineer’s opinion, a date will be decided to have the building knocked down, Pronesti said.

Even though demolition and cleanup are far from over, Pronesti said Taylor Street will likely reopen in the next couple of days.

He also said fire inspectors are no closer to discovering what started the fire. That investigation will be conducted for at least the next week and a half, he said.

Meanwhile, Elyria police Lt. Andy Eichenlaub said residents should keep their distance from the site.

“There are dangers on that property, and people need to stay off,” he said. “Look from a safe distance, but don’t get too close.”

Police were posted overnight Thursday to make sure no one crossed caution-taped areas, and Eichenlaub said although there were no real problems, some bystanders had to be pushed back from the fire several times.

Firefighters were alerted to trouble at General Industries at 1:40 a.m. Thursday. A shift commander found a loading dock engulfed in flames six minutes later and put out a second alarm.

All three floors of the building were burning shortly after 2:14 a.m., Pronesti said. The factory, built in 1920, was soaked in oil from nearly a century of industrial activity there, he said.

It was immediately clear that the fire was spreading too quickly for firefighters to put it out before it destroyed the building, Pronesti said. Fire officials decided to let it burn out and turned their attention to evacuating nearby homes and businesses threatened by the flames.

Among the most volatile was Valley Natural Gas at 151 Olive St., which has large outdoor propane and oxygen tanks. The LifeShare Community Blood Services garage across Taylor Street was damaged by the heat rolling from the 200-foot-high flames.

Hundreds of nearby homes were emptied and many residents made their ways to Eastern Heights Junior High School, where the local chapter of the Red Cross had volunteers standing by.

More than 100 firefighters from all corners of the county — and even some from Cuyahoga and Medina counties — responded to help control the blaze or provide fire coverage to other parts of Elyria.

Contact Jason Hawk at 329-7148 or jhawk@chroniclet.com.

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