Ross Park Mall delayed its opening Sunday from 11 a.m. to noon after an early-morning fire between the mall’s floors.
The call came in around 4:15 a.m., said Dillon Coleman, chief of the Berkely Hills Fire Company.
Contractors were completing renovations overnight on the first floor of the mall near the JCPenney entrance — using jackhammers to dig up concrete reinforced with rebar, he said. Contractors noticed smoke and called 911, Coleman said.
One person was evaluated by EMS for possible carbon monoxide poisoning but did not need to be taken to a hospital, Coleman said.
Ross Deputy Chief of Police Brian Kohlhepp said that sparks from cutting through rebar caught the old cardboard subfloor, causing the fire.
By the time firefighters arrived, the flames expanded to an entire first floor hallway — about 15 to 20 feet in length, Coleman said. The Warby Parker store adjacent to the hallway sustained the most damage.
“The damage is pretty extensive,” Coleman said. “They had to remove a pretty large section of shelving, drill through the concrete and stick a specialized camera down into the hole to check for fire extension down under the floor there.”
Most of the fire broke out underneath rebar and concrete the contractors had not yet dug through, which proved a challenge for firefighters, Coleman said.
“We had very limited access to be able to get in there and extinguish it,” he said.
Firefighters relied on the construction workers’ equipment to break through the rebar and concrete before they were able to extinguish the blaze. Some contractors were given breathing apparatuses to assist in the process, Coleman said.
Ventilators were also brought in to dissipate the smoke that filled the mall during the fire, he said.
“This was a very unique incident and we had to call in specialized resources from a distance to be able to bring this under control,” he said.
Kohlhepp reported that a fire department from North Huntington, responding to the fire, was involved in a crash on McKnight Road at around 9:30 a.m. A North Huntington fire department vehicle carrying a large ventilator collided with a car at Nelson Run Road. None of the injuries appeared to be serious, but three firefighters went to the hospital.
The Reserve Volunteer Fire Department, one of several North Hills area stations that responded to the fire, described the blaze as “stubborn.”
“This was a large-scale incident involving multiple alarms of fire personnel to protect millions of dollars in property,” the Reserve department said on its Facebook page.
Firefighters also had to contend with frigid conditions — the air temperature around the time of the call was between 0 degrees and 2 below zero, according to the National Weather Service. Coleman thanked mall management for allowing firefighters to station in another area of the building to stay warm amid the cold temperatures.
When the mall opened around noon, a smoky smell was evident in the common area.
The mall is scheduled to close at 6 p.m.
A mall representative did not immediately respond to requests for information.
Citing the fire, Pittsburgh Regional Transit announced that the 12 McKnight and 2 Mt. Royal routes could not service the mall.
Brian C. Rittmeyer and Quincey Reeese are TribLive staff writers. Brian can be reached at brittmeyer@triblive.com, Quincey at qreese@triblive.com.