Contents inside an Amazon-branded semi-truck near the company's facility in Phoenix apparently caught fire or was burning on Thursday morning, prompting fire officials to evacuate nearby businesses and issue a reverse 911 call encouraging homeowners nearby to shelter in place.
Phoenix Fire Captain Todd Keller, a spokesperson for the department, said firefighters were called to the facility near 75th Avenue and Roosevelt Street shortly after 7 a.m. and noticed a chemical odor and smoke coming from the trailer. Because of that, the call was upgraded to a hazardous materials situation and later upgraded to a third-alarm hazardous materials situation, as people a half-mile away were reporting a chemical odor, he said.
"Initially representatives from Amazon could not be found delaying the identification of the products inside the trailer," he said.