WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — An underground fire that burned for more than five days and destroyed a parking lot in James City County in a parking lot at the Williamsburg Premium Outlets is now out, according to the James City County Fire Department.
The James City County Fire Department said the City of Newport News Fire Department assisted in the effort, along with a contractor hired by the property owner to help extinguish the fire by 10 p.m. Wednesday.
Watch: Drone footage shows destruction left behind near Williamsburg Premium Outlets after fire finally dies
Equipment operators were able to clear away the pavement and dig into the affected area allowing the ladder truck hose streams to be more effective in extinguishing the fire, explained fire chief Ryan Ashe.
"We don't run underground fires all that often. Certainly not to the scale of three acres and 12 feet deep. Luckily all of our partners here helped us manage this incident. Those relationships are really built pre-disaster, pre-event, and we were able to call on those folks to work on a challenge that none of us have dealt with before," Ashe told reporters at an update Wednesday.
Since Saturday, the fire burned through a stormwater system roughly 12 feet deep that spans a three-acre section of parking lot.
The stormwater system was made of plastic crates.
The pavement of the parking lot had been collapsing on top of the burning material as the plastic crates weakened in the fire.
It had been challenging for fire crews to reach the underground fire. The fire department cautioned residents in the area with respiratory issues to stay inside and to avoid the area, or take precautions while outside.
The fire department said air quality tests had been in the normal range for a fire of this nature.
After crews extinguished the fire, News 3 spoke to folks who lived nearby about the experience.
"Yeah, it was really awful. The air was just filled with smoke, burned plastic. We could not breathe, honestly, we had to be in the house all the time," said one neighbor. "My wife taped the windows and doors because smoke was getting into the house."
That neighbor said he even considered leaving his home.
"We almost left because two days ago some of the woods behind our fence caught fire. The fire truck came and put out the fire but my wife was ready to leave the house," he said.
Fire crews still don't know how the crates, meant to allow water to flow underground, caught fire.
