Lives spared, livelihoods lost: Workers break down after Miami-Dade warehouse fire

Firefighters continue to battle a fire at a Northwest Miami-Dade warehouse that went up in flames on Thursday. Though lives were spared, workers and business owners now find themselves grieving for each other’s loss of livelihood.

The flames broke out before 11 a.m. Thursday, sending towers of thick black smoke into the sky, and crews have been attempting to put the fire out since.

Officials said the structure located just east of Red Road and south of Florida’s Turnpike Extension is more than twice the size of a Costco warehouse and contains hazardous materials inside.

“You couldn’t breathe in there,” one woman wearing a bright shirt with the logo “Global Warehouse Solutions” said in Spanish at the scene. “We were on our break and started to hear the alarms, and we thought it was a drill because they do drills all the time. And then another coworker came and said, ‘Get out, because the warehouse is burning.'”

She wiped tears from her eyes as she told NBC6 she had worked at the warehouse for eight years.

“We’ve worked for years in that warehouse, years. [I was scared for my life], for my coworkers’ lives,” she said.

Benny Monción, who owns DBenny Sazón, one of the food trucks parked at the facility, was in tears when she spoke to NBC6 at the scene.

She said a friend who also owns a food truck called to tell her how he fared.