Drone captures flames ripping apart a recycling center

A massive 3-alarm fire broke out in Everett, Washington on Saturday and viewers deployed a drone to capture the action. The drone captures flames tearing through the building and sending thick, black smoke into the air. According to KOMO-TV the fire broke out and was fueled by pallets, mulch, plastic and other recyclable materials within the recycling center.

As you can see from the drone, the fire gutted the recycling facility along Everett’s waterfront, sending a billowing black smoke column into the air that could be seen for miles, could take several days to fully extinguish.

“We have two walls that are collapsed, we have several debris spreads throughout the site that is smoldering and some small fires,” said Everett Fire Marshal Eric Hicks.

We’re told the fire broke out Saturday evening and was fueled by wood pallets, mulch, plastic and other recyclable materials, according to Everett Fire officials.

drone fire.movWATCH: A few KOMO viewers checked out the massive fire at the recycling center in Everett today from above! This video was captured with a drone. The fire is expected to burn throughout the night.

VIDEO CREDIT: Dylan Person (@Lechon_Kawali), Dan Person (@DanPerson24) and David Johnson (@Txdavidj)

Posted by KOMO News on Sunday, June 5, 2016

Firefighters initially went inside the building to fight the flames, but quickly determined the building was too large and the fire was already too big to extinguish from the inside. Firefighters decided to take a “defensive” approach instead.

“There’s a lot of combustible material in the building and it’s continuing to smoke,” said Hicks. “We still have a decent plume of smoke going into the air.”

At one point, nearly 100 firefighters from around the region were battling the blaze. Water tenders from surrounding fire districts also had to bring in extra water for firefighters to use, due to low water pressure in that area.