A second-alarm fire at the Sunwest Mud Company that broke out around rush-hour Monday had parts of Front Street shut down for several hours as clouds of black smoke ballooned over parts of the Tall City.

The fire started after a pallet holding wooden chips used as a mixture for drilling mud caught fire in a building in the 2900 block of Front Street, officials said.

"It's kind of like cotton and holds a deep-seated spark," Midland Fire Department Battalion Chief Fritz Niggeler said.

Witnesses told authorities they were using a torch to shrink wrap materials on the pallet just minutes before the fire started. As fire crews responded to the scene, sparks from the pallet quickly spread and within a matter of minutes a large section of the building was completely engulfed in flames.

It took firefighters a little more than an hour to contain the fire, which quickly spread to some nearby 55-gallon drums holding diesel fuel. The gas spilled out down Front Street and burned adjoining buildings. The fire was headed towards McGarvey Street where officials said the natural gas was burning near high power utility lines.

"We had a three-dimensional fire in a pool of liquid blowing down the street," Niggeler said.

Material between the two buildings, one owned by the Sunwest Company, in the 2900 and 3000 blocks of Front Street were destroyed. Both the east and west ends of the buildings suffered heavy fire damage near where the pallets were located and the fire spread.

A storage building behind the warehouse also caught fire and winds spread sparks into an empty lot north of the building that quickly engulfed the area into a small grass fire.

One nearby house suffered minor damage.

Eleven of the city's fire units were called out to help battle the blaze.

The majority of the hot spots were put out by press time, but crews still were trying to get smoke out of the main building, which was an estimated 8,000-9,000 square feet.

All Sunwest employees escaped the fire with no injuries.

One MFD firefighter was treated for minor injuries resulting from heat exhaustion.