Huge fire badly damages Greenpoint warehouse

Four-alarm blaze at 860 Humboldt Street took all night to get under control

860 Humboldt Street in Greenpoint (Fire photo via ABC; building photo via PropertyShark)
860 Humboldt Street in Greenpoint (Fire photo via ABC; building photo via PropertyShark)

A four-alarm fire tore through a Greenpoint recycling plant last night. Roughly 150 firefighters spent most of the night working to extinguish the blaze, from shortly after it started at 7 p.m. through 6 a.m. this morning.

The warehouse at 860 Humboldt Street, near Greenpoint Avenue, houses Rapid Processing. The abundance of highly flammable products in the recycling center made it difficult to put out the fire, which could be seen for miles.

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“We had large bales of cardboard strapped with steel straps and we had rags throughout, so getting to the very seat of all this smoldering cardboard and rags was very difficult,” FDNY Deputy Chief Brendan McSweeney told NBC New York. “It’s a very time-consuming process.”  As of this morning, firefighters were still working to put out hot spots in the rubble. [NBC New York]Mark Maurer