A multi-alarm fire destroyed a commercial building at the Leiby’s Dairy in Walker Township early Saturday morning.

The fire broke out at 3:39 a.m. at the water treatment plant and storage facility at 116 Mountain Road,

The loss is estimated at more than $1 million.

State police at Frackville said a newspaper delivery person saw the smoke coming from one of the buildings on the property and called 911.

Township assistant fire Chief Chad Felty said that upon arrival, there was “heavy fire inside the building, smoke showing. Flames weren’t exiting the structure at that time.”

Felty said that resulted in exterior operations only, and added there was no need to send anybody inside as there was no known life to save.

“Until we could gain access, the conditions inside were deteriorating, not life-sustaining to enter,” Felty said. “We were waiting for more apparatus and help to arrive before we could fight it.”

Felty said the flames did extend through the roof, and added that once aerial devices arrived and they put them into operation, they fought the fire from the exterior and aerial devices.

The building wasn’t salvageable, Felty said.

“We worked until mostly everything was out,” he said. “Heavy equipment had to be brought in to dismantle, scatter a little bit more of the structure to make sure everything was extinguished.”

Felty said it took firefighters about two hours to gain control of the fire.

He said they remained on scene until around 9 a.m.

Felty said there were no injuries.

He said the cause of the fire is undetermined, and under state fire marshal investigation.

He said multiple fire companies from Schuylkill County assisted on scene, as well as water tankers that were dispatched from Carbon County.

“It was heavily water dependent extinguishment, and due to our rural nature, there’s no water system for pressurized water hydrants, so we had to tanker in thousands of gallons of water; that was the major operation, moving the water,” Felty said. “We had to travel four-mile round trip to deliver the water.”

Felty said he was extremely appreciative for all of the assistance.

“It was an involved commercial structure involving a lot of working parts,” he said. “I am completely grateful for the mutual aid of the surrounding communities and the dispatched departments, and am grateful that everyone was able to go home safely to their families.”