An Air Force fire truck is lined up with others in front of a cordon at Bruchwiesenstrasse and Brauereistrasse in Landstuhl, Germany, following an early morning industrial fire on Dec. 5, 2024. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes)
LANDSTUHL, Germany — Firefighters extinguished a fire Thursday at an industrial laundry facility that blazed for nearly eight hours and spurred air quality warnings in a town near the U.S. military’s largest overseas hospital.
An evacuation order affecting buildings nearby the Elis industrial laundromat in Landstuhl and an advisory to keep windows and doors shut within a 1.25-mile radius were lifted Thursday afternoon, Landstuhl fire department spokesman Hans-Jürgen Denzer said.
An analysis of smoke samples sent to a lab in Ludwigshafen detected no significant pollutants, a Kaiserslautern district statement said.
The fire destroyed the facility’s laundry production hall but didn’t reach the warehouse containing chemicals, district officials said.
“The fire was contained so that it could not spread to surrounding buildings,” the district statement said. “Analysis of the drone images shows that the main hall is completely destroyed.”
Smoke rises as a firefighter sprays water from a fire truck's elevated bucket, as seen from a parking area near Bruchwiesenstrasse in Landstuhl, Germany, Dec. 5, 2024. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes)
Air Force and German firefighters set up their trucks in a cordoned area at Bruchwiesenstrasse and Brauereistrasse in Landstuhl, Germany, following an early morning industrial fire on Dec. 5, 2024. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes)
A German firefighter contains a fire in the industrial area of Landstuhl, Germany, Dec. 5, 2024. The fire started at a laundry facility on Bruchwiesenstrasse. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes)
The immediate area around the site on Bruchwiesenstrasse, about a half-mile from the town’s train station, remained cordoned off for safety Thursday afternoon.
Most emergency had left the scene except for Landstuhl’s fire brigade, which is keeping watch. No injuries have been reported so far due to the fire.
Nearby residents reported waking up to an early morning bang. Emergency responders received the alarm at 3:56 a.m., Kaiserslautern district officials said.
No one was inside the building as the fire spread quickly throughout the structure, the district statement said.
It remains unclear what started the fire.
About 200 emergency personnel were at the scene and the area was cordoned off, district officials said Thursday morning. The responders included police and fire personnel from nearby municipalities and the U.S. military.
The laundry facility is about 1.5 miles north of the “cardiac hill gate” at the U.S. military’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.
The Elis industrial laundromat does business with LRMC. It also contracts with the largest hospital in Luxembourg and is one of the largest companies in Landstuhl, according to SWR Kaiserslautern.
Stars and Stripes reporter Marcus Kloeckner contributed to this report.
