Update 2:15 p.m.
URBANA, Ill. (WCIA) — Newly-captured drone footage of Own Your Own Storage shows that one of the buildings on the property was completely destroyed by the fire that broke out Monday morning.
Firefighters were still on the scene as of 1:30 p.m. pouring water on the burned ruins. The walls of the building remain standing, but the roof collapsed. The footage shows that two cars were inside the building when the fire broke out and were destroyed along with everything else inside.
There is no word yet on what caused the blaze.
Original article
URBANA, Ill. (WCIA) — Firefighters are on the scene of a large fire at a storage facility in Urbana.
The fire happened at Own Your Own Storage located at 1502 Airport Road. Smoke from the fire could be seen from as far away as Mahomet and even showed up on radar.
Closer to the fire, viewer-submitted photos showed large flames coming from one of the buildings. At least 10 fire trucks from various fire departments in the area responded, including from Savoy, Philo, Eastern Prairie and Edge-Scott, and the heat was so intense one viewer said they could feel it from the road.
Tom Bender of Urbana owns five units in the facility.
“I actually got three phone calls in less than a minute letting me know the units were on fire,” Bender said. “I wanted to come out and make sure that they weren’t any of my units.”
Bender said there is a wide array of owners that use the units for various purposes. That includes individuals doing hobby work and businesses storing inventory.
One of those businesses is Servpro of Champaign-Urbana.
“We store a lot of our equipment in there, excess equipment we don’t have room for at our facility,” said employee Ken Fewkes. “We actually walked out of our building, we’re located just down the street, and saw the black smoke. We were here before the fire department was.”
Fewkes said he realized when he got on the scene that the company’s unit was probably among those that burned.
“It’s scary. At first, you’re not 100% sure what it is that’s on fire, and as you get closer, you realize it may matter to you more than you even thought,” Fewkes said. “It doesn’t feel good when you find out that your stuff’s on fire.”
This is a developing story and this article will be updated as more information becomes available.
