Fire damages Genesee Township gas station, auto repair shop - MLive.com

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GENESEE TWP, MI -- A fire Tuesday evening in Genesee Township damaged a building housing a gas station and auto repair shop.

The Genesee Township Fire Department was called out shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday, June 7, to the Admiral gas station at the southeast corner of Genesee and Mt. Morris roads for a reported commercial structure fire.

An employee inside the gas station called 911 after customers coming inside the convenience store told her there was smoke coming from the building.

Genesee Township Fire Assistant Chief Don Fremd saw black smoke coming out of a garage door on the south end of the building where Pro-Tech Auto Service Center is located. No employees were inside the service at the time of the fire.

“I had tons of black smoke coming out the garage door,” he told MLive-The Flint Journal at the scene. “I had smoke puffing out both ends of the attic area.”

After doing a check of the entire perimeter for fire, Fremd said there was a van inside the auto service center that “looked around that area where the van was parked is where we had fire.”

A unit stretched a line to enter the garage door, with a second grabbing a second line to back them up “just in case anything happened inside,” Fremd said.

With the way the smoke was coming out to the eaves and attic areas, Fremd said he called for a second alarm that brought in automatic mutual aid from the Mt. Morris Fire Department and a ladder truck from the Clio Fire Department.

“Being an automotive shop, you’ve got oxygen, acetylene, tanks in there, so any chance of some kind of explosion,” he said of the dangers associated with the fire.

A crew was sent into the convenience store to hit the emergency stop button on the gas pumps “just in case the fire got out of control on us,” Fremd said.

Firefighters cut a trench in the roof, which helped stop the fire from spreading into the convenience store. Fremd noted that’s also where a fire stop was also located that helped in their efforts.

“If they wouldn’t have had that fire stop up (there), it would have went (through) the whole attic and we probably would have had a total loss,” he said.

While some flames broke through the south end of the building and roof, Fremd said it took firefighter approximately 10 minutes to put out the flames.

“They had a pretty good, nice stop on it,” he said.

No injuries were reported. The convenience store suffered minor smoke damage.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Fremd said it’s possible the fire started from the vehicle inside the service center area, but he will be reaching out to the state fire investigator to help in determining an exact cause.

Read more at The Flint Journal:

Home where 2 Flint kids died from fire had faulty wiring, investigators say

Crime Stoppers offering reward for unsolved March homicide in Flint

5 dead, 1 hospitalized after fire at Flint home, city fire officials say

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