UNION COUNTY, S.C. (WSPA) – Fire crews in Union County were busy Saturday when they responded to a business fire at the Dollar General Distribution Center.
Officials say the call came in around 12:47 p.m.
“We were set off for a commercial structure fire. We were told that there was a trash compactor on fire and the caller did not know if it was inside or outside the building,” Donald Long, Chief of Jonesville Fire Department said.
Officials say over 8 fire units responded to the scene. “There were several departments Jonesville Fire Department, Bottom Fire Department, Kempton Fire Department, Buffalo Fire Department, Southside Fire Department,” Long added. “The City of Union Responded with a ladder truck.”
Upon arrival, crews saw the fire coming from outside the building.
“We attacked the fire from the exterior and we ended up using a wench and a tractor to remove the dumpster part of the compactor machine away from the compactor to extinguish the fire.”
It took fire crews 20 minutes to put out the blaze. “We were able to use some fans on the north side of the building that was already installed when Dollar General was built and remove the smoke out of the structure,” Long said.
How the compactor caught fire is uncertain. “It wasn’t a real big fire; it was a trash compactor,” Long said. “We run trash fires all the time but usually not in a compactor.”
Officials say that no injuries have been reported.
