Vehicle Repair Starts Hamblin Ave Structure Fire in Battle Creek

Repairs to a contractor van started a fire in a commercial building in the 200-block of Hamblin Avenue, Saturday evening.

Battle Creek firefighters arrived, around 7:45 PM., to find thick black smoke billowing from the east-end of a concrete block building where workers were attempting to remove a fuel tank from a van.

Firefighters used a K-12 saw to remove two garage doors from the building and determined that the bulk of the fire was contained to the van. They aggressively attacked the blaze, limiting damage to the ceiling of the structure due to smoke.

There were no injuries resulting from the fire and it was determined that the cause of the blaze was the accidental ignition of the fuel tank being removed from the vehicle.