Photo by Ken Badger

A three-alarm fire on May 11 destroyed the farm warehouse building at 205 Pine Road .

cording to Eppler .

“ It was due to the construction of the building and the contents that were present inside the building . The walls had the foam insulation … There was a large volume of fire load in the building , including cardboard , stacks of crates in bundles , rolls of labels and repacking materials ,” Eppler said .

The Hammonton Police Department is conducting the investigation , Hammonton Police Chief Robert Jones told The Gazette . Officer Jared Baglivo is the investigating officer , Jones said .

“ There is a current investigation .

There is no official cause at this time . We are leaning at this time at their welding inside the building that may have ignited some insulation in the wall or floor areas . The investigation will probably take a couple of weeks ,” Jones said . According to Rusty Lucca , the warehouse was owned by Lucca through a company called 205 Pine Road LLC . Lucca told The Gazette that he is the sole proprietor of 205 Pine Road LLC , and that the warehouse property was being leased by Buffalo Farms Freezer and Cold Storage at the time of the fire . Lucca said his tenant Buffalo

Farms , which he said is owned by George and Gary Mortellite , had planned to go to close on the sale of the warehouse property and purchase it on May 12 .

Just hours before the sale was to be consummated , the building burned , Lucca said , adding that he and his family still owned the property and any future plans for it would be contingent on economics .

“ We ’ re still going to own the property . We are going to sit down with the insurance company and determine the best course of action going forward … it just depends on

See FIRE , Page 14