Large fire in Concord burns vacant commercial building near BART station

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Fire crews are still on scene in Concord blocking off roads, several hours after a large fire gutted a commercial building.

The fire broke out near the BART station on East Street and Sunset Avenue. That is right across the street from the BART station and in a stretch of commercial buildings.

Overnight, the front part of the building collapsed in flames.

"There was a couple of structural members that did collapse during the fire and that's primarily due to the amount of heat that comes during the fire, which caused a couple walls to fall," Victor Daniel, a spokesperson for the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District said.

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Daniel says luckily, firefighters had already taken a defensive approach to fight this fire from the outside, not long after the call first came in around 10:30 p.m. on Monday night.

Intense flames could be seen coming from this three-story building, at times, even shooting out the windows. It quickly grew to a 2-alarm fire.

"One of the biggest hazards to us is the heavy smoke that omits from the building, as well as the fire that extended throughout the building, you saw it coming out of the roof as well as some coming out of some of the windows and then obviously we're worried about structural collapse," he said.

Despite the fiery mess, no one was injured.

Neighbor Stephen Anderson said he saw it just walking his dog before bed last night.

"Saw a large billowing, orangeish, reddish cloud in the distance and it was pretty large," Anderson said. "Caught my attention as soon as I walked out, I couldn't believe how big the cloud it was, I knew it had to be a large fire."

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He says this building had been vacant for several years until he noticed some renovations.

"I think it was about a year ago, give or take, a little over a year, and you can actually see where they started to paint and then all the sudden the paint job seemed to stop abruptly, it was always kind of a curiosity as we drive by, what's happening with that building?" he said.

Fire officials say the cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Even more than 12 hours after this fire started, streets remained closed in the perimeter around the fire.

This includes:

• East St. between Concord Blvd/Park St.
• Colfax St. between Concord Blvd/Sunset Ave.
• Clayton Rd. between Sunset Ave/Park St.
• Sunset Ave. between Colfax St/Port Chicago Hwy.

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