Photo courtesy of Allen Rhodes Local businessman Allen Rhodes took this photo of the explosive fire at the America’s Mattress store on the Beverly Five-Lane early Wednesday morning.

ELKINS — Flare-ups will continue for days at the site of the America’s Mattress store fire on the Beverly Five-Lane, the Randolph County Office of Emergency Management (OEM) said Thursday morning.

The Randolph County OEM released a statement regarding concerns that had been raised about smoke continuing to billow out of the America’s Mattress store. The statement was released on Randolph County OEM’s social media page around 7 a.m. on Thursday.

“911 and Elkins Fire Department are aware that (the building is) still having flare ups,” Randolph County OEM said in its statement. “This will continue to happen for several days. Fire department is checking on this periodically.”

On Wednesday, Elkins Fire Department Chief Steve Himes told The Inter-Mountain the department received a call about the fire around 12:45 a.m. Wednesday morning. When they arrived, the building was “heavily involved in fire.” No injuries were reported from the blaze.

The Elkins Fire Department has made multiple trips to the site of the fire throughout Wednesday and Thursday.

“The only hydrant we had at our disposal actually broke, so it had to get shut down,” Himes told The Inter-Mountain around 2 p.m. on Wednesday. “(Department members) just left to make about their fifth trip.”

The building suffered what Himes called a “catastrophic interior collapse,” making it unsafe for department members to be in what is left of the building.

“The second floor fell to the basement,” Himes said. “The roof fell on top of that. It’s just going to be hard to get to. It’s going to take some heavy equipment probably to finish it off.”

The cause of the fire is being investigated by the State Fire Marshal’s Office, Himes said.

The fire, according to Mon Power, had left fewer than 20 of their customers without electricity for part of the day.

Multiple power outages were reported throughout the area on Wednesday after a severe thunderstorm late Tuesday night. Mon Power reported around 933 customers in the areas of Mill Creek, Huttonsville and Adolph and around 556 customers in the areas of Mill Creek, Huttonsville and Elkwater had lost power on Wednesday.

As of Thursday morning, Mon Power reported that all power had been restored in the area, though there is a threat of more outages due to other severe storms forming this week and the next.

The National Weather Service/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared a Hazardous Weather Outlook from Thursday until next Wednesday for northwest and southeast Randolph County, as well as Upshur, Barbour and northwest and southeast Pocahontas counties.

“We’re going to remain in a pretty active pattern for the next several days just based on a slow moving system that’s gonna propel daily chances for showers, and maybe even some thunderstorms in the area,” Megan Kiebler, the lead meteorologist for the NWS in Charleston, told The Inter-Mountain on Thursday. “So each severe risk day is going to be different from another.”

For Thursday afternoon and into Thursday night, the National Weather Service called for the possibility of “strong to severe thunderstorms” that could contain “damaging winds, hail and heavy rainfall that could lead to flash flooding.”

Kiebler said the National Weather Service would be watching for damaging winds and hail throughout Thursday, however there was a “very low risk” for possible tornados. 

Kiebler also explained that more power outages are possible, especially in areas that receive damaging winds that could down trees and power lines.

For Friday through Saturday, the National Weather Service once again called for the possibility of “strong to severe thunderstorms,” with the “main risks” with these storms being “damaging winds and small hail.”

Going into next week, the National Weather Service predicted the possibility of a “localized to isolated flash flooding threat with thunderstorms that contain high rainfall rates or train repeatedly over specific locations.”