A fire broke out at a laundromat in Manitowoc earlier this morning.
Manitowoc Fire Chief Todd Balser tells Seehafer News that the fire was called in by a passerby who noticed smoke coming from Globe Laundry at the corner of South 13th and Washington Streets at around 7:30 this morning.
“Initial units arrived on the scene. We had light smoke…you could see coming from the roof,” he explained. “We went into the interior and did find some active fire above the drier area within the structure here. Soon after that, we had fire that breached through the roof. The fire was quickly knocked down and contained.”
Manitowoc Police blocked off the roadway between South 14th and 12th Streets while crews battled the blaze.
Additional crews from the Two Rivers, Silver Creek, Newton, and Branch Fire Departments and the Valders Ambulance were on the scene, which Blaser said was a tremendous help.
“Their assistance is valuable operating through the mutual aid box alarm system,” he stated. “Events like this here, if this would have gotten away from us, we would have been playing catchup. This way, we knew we had those extra resources here.”
Blaser also praised the witness who called it in saying, “Wonderful job by them not just to ignore what was going on, stopping, and making the owner aware of what was happening on the outside, which he couldn’t see from the inside.”
The structure of the building is in good condition, and crews were expected to be cleared out by around 9:00 a.m.
