No one injured in Vancouver warehouse explosion

An explosion at a Vancouver warehouse early Friday morning left the building structurally unsound, according to fire officials. No one was at the business at the time.

Firefighters responded to a fire alarm at Powers Paper Co., 1700 W. 20th St., at about 3:45 a.m., said Darrin Deming, Vancouver Fire Department firefighter and spokesman.

Upon arrival, they saw that several large roll-up doors had been blown off and there was smoke coming out of the doors, Deming said.

Sprinklers appeared to be controlling the fire, but crews upgraded the response to a structure fire and sent a team to the roof to survey the building, Deming said. The crew found sagging in the roof and discovered that a wall was tilting away from the building, so the call was upgraded to a second alarm.

“At that point, everything went defensive; we kept firefighters outside,” Deming said. “Basically, we continued to support the sprinkler system as a way of suppressing the fire.”

With help from Clark County Fire District 6, Deming said, firefighters brought the fire under control in about 30 minutes.

Investigators don’t yet have a damage estimate; they did say that a propane tank that fuels one of the forklifts released gas, causing the explosion, Deming said.

A company representative would not say if the incident interrupted normal business.