Colorado storage unit tenants feared their items were set on fire in Arvada fire: 'Everything burned down'

Some Coloradans are waiting to find out if their priceless memories were destroyed in a large fire Tuesday morning. The fire started after daybreak in a warehouse in Arvadaand the tenants of the accommodation came to the scene to see the damage while it was still smoldering.

Tenant Russell Bresky rushed to StorQuest Self Storage and said he was told it might be a day or two before he could go in and see the damage.

“It's like burned. All burned. I just hope my unit is mostly OK, but I literally don't have high hopes,” Bresky said.

Bresky is moving from one house to another.

“We’re moving into our house on the 10th,” he said. “I was literally going to come to my unit on the 12th to empty it.”

Carole Walker, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Association, told CBS Colorado that most homeowners and renters insurance companies cover storage units and their contents, but the devil may be in the details.

“You have coverage, the question will be how much because you have limits on coverage for your contents and what is the value of what am I storing in this storage unit?” »Walker explained. “Some insurance companies have a lower limit for off-site property.”

He had tools, valuable comics and bookshelves in his unit.

“I had a bunch of paintings there of my fiancée when she first started painting,” Bresky said.

Investigators are still working to determine how many storage units at StorQuest were damaged. The facility is located just west of Wadsworth Boulevard in the western part of the Denver metropolitan area.

Firefighters had difficulty controlling the fire. It spanned the roof above many units. As smoke billowed from the building, first responders opened unit doors to try to save items inside.

At this time, it is not known exactly how the fire started. Two firefighters were slightly injured during the exchange of fire which lasted several hours.