Two buildings damaged at Was Broken Pallet Co.

Firefighters spent more than four hours trying to contain an afternoon fire that destroyed part of a Moorland business Saturday.

The Moorland Fire Department was notified at about 12:50 p.m. that one of the three buildings owned by the Was Broken Pallet Co., a locally owned business, was on fire.

Moorland Fire Chief Ken Thompson said the cause of the fire was unknown but said there had been employees working at the site until about 11 a.m.

No injuries were reported but there was damage to the east and west buildings and the center building was destroyed by the fire.

''It started in the center building ... the cause is still under investigation,'' he said.

Thick white smoke could be seen rising from the building in the early stages of the blaze and fire appeared to be coming up around the edges of the steel roof.

Within about 15 minutes, however, the smoke had turned black and flames had engulfed the roof of the center building. An explosion was also heard shortly thereafter, which Thompson said was a liquid propane tank that caught fire.

''The wind switched on us and started blowing smoke in our direction,'' he said. ''(But) the real difficulty in a building like that is the (metal) roof collapsing.''

The Moorland Fire Department started attacking the fire on the south side of the center building and entered the building at three different spots, initially having to force entry.

The Otho and Callender fire departments also arrived on the scene within a half hour and started to douse the fire from the northern side of the building.

The company, which makes and repairs wooden pallets, stored the items inside and outside the buildings along with wood shavings. A cart of liquid propane tanks also had to be removed.

''That's what really led to the ... problems we had,'' said Thompson. ''Especially when you have a building like that with all that wood.''

He said the blaze had been contained by about 5 p.m.