During the first air raid on the evening of 13 February 1945, the large municipal warehouses suffered only minor damage, but the second air raid set both buildings alight. The air-raid wardens stationed here were unable to put out the fire during the night’s firestorm. In the early morning a small group of them began to fight the blaze.
Hours later, the first help arrived: a Volkssturm unit from the town of Meissen. Since the available fire-fighting equipment was insufficient, they had to try to get the fires in the New Warehouse under control using “bucket chains” from the nearby River Elbe. At midday, a Luftwaffe (air force) fire brigade from the town of Frankenberg took over from the men of the Volkssturm, and later on fire-fighters from Berlin, Chemnitz and Leipzig were deployed. The fires burned for several days.

Marked in 2001