No one purposely torched that NYPD evidence warehouse that went up in flames in Brooklyn late last year, fire officials said Thursday as they revealed the cause.
An electrical blowout in a conduit leading to an exit sign sparked the three-alarm Columbia Street fire on Dec. 13, which sent huge clouds of black smoke billowing over Red Hook, fire marshals determined.
More than 100 firefighters spent hours at the site, at the Erie Basin Auto Pound, that day.
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Twenty people, a mix of NYPD staffers and contractors, were said to be inside the warehouse when the inferno started. A total of eight people -- three firefighters, three EMS members and two civilians -- suffered minor injuries.
The fire destroyed an untold amount of "biological evidence," including DNA from past crimes, like burglaries and shootings — some of it going back 20 or 30 years, the NYPD said. Rape kits, however, were not stored at that facility.
The evidence was linked to cold cases, stored in barrels made of cardboard, which may have fueled the flames.
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Cars linked to high-profile police murders, like the squad car Officer Ed Byrne was killed in back in 1988 and the mobile unit where Officer Miosotis Familia was killed in 2017, were stored there. Sandy property evidence was there as well.
There was no estimated cost of the damage.
Erie Basin is one of several lots the NYPD uses to store vehicles that have been seized for reasons other than parking violations. Those might include the arrest of the vehicle owner, investigative purposes or legal reasons, the city says.
