ALTOONA FIRE

Altoona firefighters answered a call about a fire in a parking lot next to the 29th Street bridge Thursday. The call came in yesterday afternoon around 1:30, and when crews arrived, the discovered that a fire had been built by some workers in the parking lot next to a warehouse earlier in the day… in an effort to keep themselves warm.. and had gotten away from them. It took about 20 minutes to put the flames out. Fortunately, the fire didn’t spread because of the wind, but the bridge had to be shut down for about an hour because of the heavy smoke from the burning plastic. The bridge suffered minor damage, and will be evaluated by an engineer. A trailer containing refrigeration equipment was also damaged, but nobody was hurt. The fire was ruled accidental.