On Wednesday, one of Arturo Fuente’s tobacco warehouses located in Villa González, Dominican Republic, caught fire.

Carlos “Carlito” Fuente Jr. told halfwheel that the building caught fire earlier on Wednesday and burned into the night, completely destroying the building and the tobacco inside, though no one was hurt. The warehouse—which the tobacco company considers to be Tobacco Warehouse #3—contained roughly a million pounds of tobacco.

The warehouse is located in the same complex where Fuente suffered a tobacco fire in August 2011. Notably, Warehouse #3 is located next to the warehouse that caught fire in that 2011 incident. The only warehouse affected as part of this fire was Warehouse #3.

Fuente told halfwheel that the cause of the fire is still unknown, as is the damage to both the building and the tobacco inside. However, photographs from the scene show a large warehouse on fire that is missing a large section of its roof as well as a significant portion of one exterior brick wall.

This facility is located in Villa González and is part of a complex that includes numerous other tobacco warehouses. It is not in the same location as the company’s manufacturing facilities, which are located in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic.

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Brooks Whittington

I have been smoking cigars for over eight years. A documentary wedding photographer by trade, I spent seven years as a photojournalist for the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star Telegram. I started the cigar blog SmokingStogie in 2008 after realizing that there was a need for a cigar blog with better photographs and more in-depth information about each release. SmokingStogie quickly became one of the more influential cigar blogs on the internet, known for reviewing preproduction, prerelease, rare, extremely hard-to-find and expensive cigars. I am a co-founder of halfwheel and now serve as an editor for halfwheel.