After the large warehouse was extinguished following the devastating fire in Veddel on Tuesday morning, the Hamburg Fire Department's large-scale operation continued on Wednesday morning. There were further detonations on site during the night. This was confirmed by a fire department spokesperson to the Abendblatt newspaper upon request. Almost 40 hours after the fire broke out, according to the fire department, around 30 emergency personnel are still on site.
During Wednesday night, firefighters were using unmanned water cannons at the rear of the site to extinguish a burning container storage facility when explosions were heard again shortly before 4 a.m. The emergency services immediately called in additional colleagues. Some of the containers had apparently also been used to store explosive material. The fire department has not yet been able to say exactly what detonated. According to a spokesperson, the priority now is to open and extinguish the burning containers one by one, while always observing safety precautions for the emergency services on site. There were further explosions on Tuesday night, the spokesperson added.
Smoke development in Veddel from the perspective of the wholesale market
Despite the large-scale police operation, the impact on everyday operations in the surrounding port area was minimal. "Apart from the smoke development in Veddel, everything ran quite normally for us; there was no question of major closures or anything similar," said Hamburg-based fruit forwarding company Weidner & Co., located on Dessauer Strasse, west of Veddel. The same applies to the local wholesale market in the Hammerbrook district, about three kilometers from the source of the fire, as confirmed by a local fruit dealer on request.