Fairview, SC (Paul Kirby) – Lexington County firefighters were busy Thursday afternoon as several brush fires and vehicle collisions kept them running to calls to provide help. Between Pelion and Fairview, they had to fight a fire that consumed much of a mobile home and the woods and outbuildings around it.
The call was dispatched at around 2:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon in the 300 blk. of Water Tank Road. This is close to the Fairview end of the road that runs from US Hwy. 178 near to Pelion to Caulks Ferry Road. Responding firefighters reported they could see a column of smoke in the sky before arriving.
The first fire unit arrived and reported that a single-wide mobile home was burning, and the flames were also moving to the surrounding woods. There were outbuildings involved too. The firefighters indicated much of the mobile was already burning. After circling the home to size up the situation, firefighters pulled hoses from the first due fire engine and went to work.
More trucks and personnel got there, and they began battling the mobile home fire. Additional resources were either tasked with assisting the crews fighting the mobile home or stopping the spreading woods fire. There were no fire hydrants in proximity so this fire required tankers to carry water from a hydrant that had been already designated for water supply.
The battalion chief enroute was already working closely with the county’s communication center. The telecommunicator assigned the fire notified the appropriate utility company to respond and disconnected the electricity early on. Communications also used their computer system to locate the closest hydrant quickly. Lexington County EMS had already been dispatched with the fire trucks. Deputies were requested because there was fire equipment parked in the narrow road.
The SC Forestry Commission was requested and sent a tractor-plow unit with an operator to cut a break around the woods fire. This stopped the woods fire’s progress until firefighters could turn their attention to that.
Although the mobile home fire was controlled quickly, crews remained on scene until after 4:00 p.m. making sure that everything was completely out. Trucks had been repositioned around the county so stations’ service areas whose resources were committed to the fire would not go unprotected. They were released to return to their home stations once trucks began arriving in their primary service areas.
After the fire was out and the property was released to its owner, the crew from Fairview station returned to the scene after reloading their primary trucks. They checked the fire to make sure nothing had rekindled.
The county has not released photos of the fire or an estimate of damages done to the home and surrounding property yet. They also have not said whether the woods or the structures were the first to catch fire.
The county has not released photos of the fire or an estimate of damages done to the home and surrounding property yet. They also have not said whether the woods or the structures were the first to catch fire.
