Brooklyn didn’t have an official fireworks show this year, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t any smoke in the sky on July 4.
Illegal fireworks sparked a two-alarm inferno inside the Rosenwach Tank Company lumberyard at the corner of Wythe Avenue and N. Ninth Street in Williamsburg that took firefighters more than an hour and half to tame.
The fire erupted at around 9:11 pm after some Independence Day revelers detonated contraband explosives near the lot, according to Fire Department spokesman Steve Ritea.
“We believe it was sparked by fireworks,” said Ritea, who noted that the horrifying inferno caused no injuries when it tore through Rosenwach’s water tank factory — one of just two such facilities that construct the iconic wooden barrels prevalent atop buildings around the city.
Despite the tall flames and massive plumes of smoke, the blaze caused little damage to the Rosenwach facility, burning mostly stockpiles of wood and other water tank materials, an employee told The Brooklyn Paper.
“Everything is moving forward,” she said. “We are up and running again.”
