14 DAY TRIAL // A fire was started in a storage building at the Yuengling Brewery this weekend, causing some damage to the facility in Tampa, Florida.
According to the Tampa Tribune, firefighters were called in on Saturday at the headquarters on 11111 North 30th Street.
One firefighter suffered minor injuries while battling the blaze. According to the Tampa Tribune, about sixty Fire Rescue staff responded to the call.
The wounded fireman was released from the hospital after being examined. Two alarms were sent out after a storage building was found “engulfed in flames” after 8 p.m.
The building complex, which was set up by Schlitz, has been owned by Yuengling since 1999. It is the oldest in the United States.
“The fire looked a lot worse than it really was,” plant manager Jim Helmke notes.
The Tribune writes that it has been ruled as an accident. Firemen climbed five stories and faced the heat and smoke.
The flames were mostly confined to an exterior wall. The total damage to the building has been estimated at $1 million (€720,000).
“None of the product was jeopardized,” Helmke adds.
Aerial ladder trucks were employed to contain the blaze. Since climbing posed a lot of risks, fire crews chose to dump water onto the flames from outside the building. They put out the fire in approximately one hour.
“It will be business as usual on Monday morning. [...] We are very fortunate. It does look bad. There is a gaping hole and charred remains, but there is no internal damage, except for the hole in the wall.
“Though there is some damage, it’s nothing we can’t work around and continue to make beer. Fires are bad, but this could have been far, far, far worse,” Helmke describes in a statement.