Well, you know it is officially summer time in Detroit when truck dropping season starts at the Packard Plant.
It would appear that the mischievous little gremlins who tried to launch this giant camper off the roof ran into a little snag there on the edge of the building….
This is the last building in the abandoned part of the complex (Kirlin is in the last warehouse on Concord at I-94). I was going to go up to the roof to take photos of the camper up close, but there were multiple scrappers inside working away full blast, making a huge racket with powertools and cutting torches. This building was also on fire before noon.
Just like everyday, there were multiple large fires going while I was there yesterday morning. This one was going pretty good around 11:30 a.m. There was another that had already taken it course but still had small flames on the south side on the second floor. That must have been burning over night.
Around dinner time, I start hearing that the camper is on fire !
I waited a while, then headed down to check it out.
Sure enough, dude had been burned to a crisp..
After I was watching for a while, the fire moved quickly through other floors.
Uh oh…
“Houston, we have a problem”….
Ohhhhh….Poor camper. It never got to fly.
23 Responses to Packard Camper Fire
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how the heck does a camper end up on the roof there anyway? had it been up there long?
I think it was up there about a week. Watch the video clip at the end of the post – I show the camper before the fire, and then the camera pans down the building. You can see the huge drive up ramp entrance on the corner of the building. I would assume whoever drove that straight up to the roof. The scrappers drive trucks and forklifts up and down these ramps every day. Thats how they move the big stuff.
The third photo down shows the side of the building, those large staggered windows are the ramps going up to the roof and all levels. If you wanted to, you could still drive up into the plant and all the way through it at the other end on the other side of Grand Boulevard.
So Does the city just let things burn down now? I did not see any one trying to put out the fire.
Yes, they watch it burn and do not go in.
You just know, that the camper WILL end up on the ground ! It will fly !
I don’t blame them. It’s not worth risking lives. Also I hope nobody gets hurt with that camper just hanging off the edge like that. Damn scrappers!!!
Please be warned if you are coming to Packard to smash…karma will get you.
That camper,used to be on a lower level…It was used for paintball…15 yrs ago …Used to be a boat there as well….
Ive never seen scrappers take vehicles into the north side of the plant. Granted that building is/was a parking structure, but the north end of the complex is only accessable (by vehicle) from east grand, and there are concrete blocks around 3 feet tall blocking that entry. Ive been there many times and were it not for those blocks would have parked on the north side of east grand so as to be able to see my car from any building.
Im not saying your lying or anything, obviously someone moved the concrete blocks to be able to get packardbego to its semi-final resting place, but you would need a forklift or some major horsepower to move those blocks.
Also there are several very large holes in some of the ramps in the parking structure – anyone driving up there would have to take extreme caution – especially with something as large as Packardbego
The forklift comes almost daily, and yes, it moves the concrete barriers while it is on site doing scrapping. Thats how the scrappers get the pickup truck in there. So the concrete barrier is not always in the same place, and not always in place at all.
But I have no idea how or whatever got the camper up there – so I wouldnt be “lying” regardless. Maybe it was always there.
So tell us then exactly how the camper got up there Time Loop – you seem to have specific inside information about this, do tell….
Time Loop – the scrappers drive their trucks straight through that building from Concord, and they drive their trucks up the ramps. The ramps have a few holes, but you can either drive around them, or they have metal plates over them. I walked the route yesterday from Concord, through the building, and up the ramps to the burned camper.
Just another hipster art installation. Hopefully one of the mouth breathing hipster Neanderthals will get roughed up enough a t the pack to move back to where they came from. Get out of the D
” ‘Cause like a picture she was layin’ there
moonlight dancin’ off her hair
She woke up and took me by the hand
We made love in my Chevy van
and that’s all right with me” Sammy Johns
she is down…but the fire’s keep burning
Long live packard
its not the artists its the large scrapping operations that are eating up our city!
No its the self proclaimed artists. A termite might consider itself a useful part of the food chain while it unwittingly creates decay from within. These hipster wannabe photo taking jerks are eating up the city. (Not DFunk) The ones that run around snapping pictures like Japanese tourists at Disneyland in 1975. The scrappers are cleaning up the city.
You know – (thanks for not including in me in that list — lol) I agree with the scrapper part, aside from the huge damn fires. That burned shit goes up in the atmosphere, and I can smell it from my house some days. I dont dig breathing all that…But otherwise, the scrappers are like the microbes that devour fruit in those time lapse films.. just part of the food chain like you said.
Really artists as bad as scrapping corperations?
Well DFunk we know that you were doing your thing way before it was a fad. The fires are bad but as far as people savaging what they can people need to survive. Keep up the great work man. there are only 2 or 3 websites that are worth keeping up with. This is one of them .
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I went to the Packard Plant once to photograph it but I didn’t get out of the car! How dangerous is it? And do you need permission from the city to go inside or do you just risk it yourself?
I just go in. How dangerous – thats a really subjective question..But its not like you cant get out of your car – thats a bit extreme. Go on a weekend when its sunny and there will be tons of other people doing the same thing.