Fire damages Plano auto repair shop, DMV

The Illinois Department of Motor Vehicles office in Plano is expected to be closed for a few weeks while crews clean up following a fire that started in an auto repair shop adjoining the facility.

Firefighters from the Little Rock-Fox Fire Protection District and other area fire districts extinguished the blaze Friday afternoon. It caused extensive damage in the Velasquez Mufflers & Brakes shop in the 700 block of South Street (Route 34).

A sign hangs now inside the DMV's front entrance door that reads "Closed due to fire. Visit our website for alternate locations cyberdriveillinois.com."

Dave Jordan, assistant fire chief for the Little Rock-Fox Fire Protection District, said the blaze started in the garage when a vehicle's fuel tank caught on fire.

“Supposedly they were working on a fuel tank and subsequently some fuel caught fire,” he said, adding that there were two garage bays in the building where the mechanic was operating and each bay had a vehicle in it on the east side of the building.

No injuries were reported.

“We were very lucky. Everybody had evacuated,” Jordan said.

The dispatch call came in around 3 p.m. and Jordan said firefighters were at the scene until about 8 p.m.

“When we got there, there were flames shooting out of those two east doors probably seven or eight feet with that portion of the building fell involved,” he said. “We had the fire under control in about two hours, totally, but then there was a lot of overhaul we had to do. It was a very, very hot fire.”

Jordan said they noticed the walls starting to crack at the top of the building.

“We were very concerned if walls were going to fail or not because of the building construction,” he said. “We had to pretty much keep our distance. We're not going to get somebody hurt just over real estate.”

Plano Mayor Bob Hausler said people from the Secretary of State's office and Illinois State Police inspected the building right after the fire and secured the DMV's equipment.

The auto shop has been closed since the fire and Hausler said the fire primarily damaged the part of the building containing the garage.

“It was pretty extensive damage to the east end where the car repair shop was,” he said. “As the demolition work [continues] on the areas that were damaged real bad we'll be doing more inspections so it's kind of early to get a complete picture.”

Tom Karpus, the city's Planning, Building and Zoning director, said a company is cleaning up the DMV office, which sustained smoke damage in the blaze.

“It was primarily smoke, not too much physical damage, but you know that smoke smell gets into all the softer materials and it just doesn't go away,” Karpus said.

He added that a firewall between the auto shop and the DMV helped to keep the fire contained in the garage area.

“That concrete block wall pretty much kept that fire in the garage base,” he said.

According to Jordan, 11 fire departments assisted including Montgomery, Bristol-Kendall, Oswego, Newark, Big Rock, Lisbon and Leland. There were about 50 firefighters on the scene battling the blaze.

“When our first engine arrived on the scene, we went right to a portable master stream which shoots about 400 to 500 gallons per minute,” Jordan said. “That line right away made just one heck of a hit.”

Bristol-Kendall firefighters later sprayed the area with a compressed air foam.

Jordan added that the building contains four units and flames had started to spread to some of the other units. There is also a large storage facility to the south of the building firefighters were keeping an eye on that was storing boats.

“When they discovered they had a fire they utilized the extinguisher to try to suppress it and when that failed they just started going down the row of businesses just to make sure everyone was evacuated,” he said.

Jordan mentioned that traffic control on Route 34 was a big problem until the Plano Police Department assisted them with rerouting vehicles.

“People were driving up to it and stopping in the middle of the road and officers did a great job,” he said. “They blocked the road and stopped anything that was coming except for fire apparatus. I can't say enough about Plano police.”