A fire inside a box truck carrying fireworks was "roaring pretty good" on South Lake Road in Pembroke when firefighters arrived on scene, said Indian Falls Assistant Chief Ed Mileham.
The call initially came in as a firework striking a vehicle and starting a fire but as it turned out the fire started inside a truck that was returning to Genesee County from a fireworks show last night in Akron.
The driver is unsure how the fire started, Mileham said.
The truck was loaded with launch canisters stacked in the front of the truck and unused fireworks in the back of the truck.
Exploding fireworks lit up the neighborhood and blew out the passenger side panel of the truck, the back roll-up door, and the roof. The cab was undamaged, probably because of the stacked canisters in the box stacked between the fireworks and the cab, Mileham said.
The driver was rolling on Route 5 through Pembroke when he spotted some sparks in his rearview mirror. He stopped to inspect, heard some bangs, and thought "I need to get out of here," Mileham said. He started yelling for residents to call 9-1-1.
Pembroke fire was first on scene with a truck that had a deck gun, which allowed firefighters to spray water on the fire from a distance.
"The flames just roaring out of the back of the truck, almost hitting the power lines in the area," Mileham said.
National Grid was called to the scene and the power lines and a transformer about 20 feet away appeared to be undamaged.
"It was not a normal truck fire or car fire where you go up, put some water on it, put it out, and that's hit," Mileham said.
There was smoking debris up and down the roadway for dozens of feet, Mileham said, as well as in residential yards. No secondary fire was started by the fireworks, however.
Pembroke and Indian Falls were assisted at the scene by Corfu, the Genesee County Sheriff's Office, and Dadswell, which towed the truck and cleaned up the debris.
Video taken with a home security camera submitted by a reader.
UPDATE: Here's another video from James Garrett.
