GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A fire broke out at the PADNOS Recycling Center near downtown Grand Rapids Monday morning.
It started around 3 a.m. at the facility located at 601 Letellier Avenue. It took crews over 2 hours to extinguish the flames.
The 13 ON YOUR SIDE crew at the scene saw flames coming from the building, along with a massive plume of black smoke. Fire crews were up on aerials, shooting water into the blaze.
A fire official told us an employee reported the fire, which broke out during the peak of the overnight storms.
"This was right after the storm blew through and made our way inside and encountered pretty heavy fire and a lot of metal shavings, oils, combustibles that don't do well with water, and so we had to pull out and go defensive," GRFD Chief Brad Brown said. "We're keeping it at bay, so it has a pretty good fuel load inside, with the metal shavings and oils, and so we're anticipating on being here most of the day."
First responders don't believe anyone was inside when the fire started.
The roof collapsed as a result of the damage. The building holds metals and oils, which makes the fire difficult to extinguish with water alone. Fire crews say that's why it took so long to extinguish. They believe crews will be there all day.
No firefighters were injured while battling the flames.
"This went to a second alarm, and a little bit after 3 in the morning, we had every unit in the city out, either operating here at the other structure fire or the other multiple medical and fire alarms throughout the city. We have been able to rotate some crews out so we do have coverage for the rest of the city, but this is going to take most of our personnel the whole day to get under control," Chief Brown said.
There have been several fires at PADNOS recycling centers over the past decade at different locations, including in 2016, 2019, 2023 and 2024.
PADNOS operates multiple facilities throughout the state, including several in Grand Rapids and West Michigan.