By HEATHER WALTERS
A house fire has led to the recovery of believed to be stolen from a nearby county.
On Monday, April 12, a motorist traveling on Interstate 95 called 911 to report seeing a structure fire. Responding crews went the area, and found a house on fire: the house was located along the 200-block of Mt. Carmel Road.
“Responding units could see a thick column of black smoke from several miles away,” said Barry McRoy, chief of Colleton County Fire-Rescue.
“Arriving units found the fire to be at the end of Faulkenberry Lane, which ends against I-95,” he said. “The home was located in a secluded area and was not visible from Mount Carmel Road.”
Firefighter crews found the single-wide mobile home in flames: according to McRoy, the house was about 35 percent engulfed when crews arrived.
A storage building on the property was also on fire, along with multiple items laying in the back yard of the property, said McRoy.
“Firefighter-Paramedics deployed two 1-3/4 handlines and one 2-1/2 handline to combat the fires,” he said. “Exterior crews used the 2-1/2 to knock down the fire before another crew entered the building through the front door.
“A third crew worked on the yard fire and storage building.”
No one was at the residence when the fire was reported and the house had no power connected to it when firefighters arrived. The house was saved, said McRoy, with firefighters having the fire under control in about 15 minutes.
“The interior suffered smoke and heat damage,” he said. “The storage building was a total loss. No injuries were reported.”
While on scene for the fire, local law enforcement officers discovered property that had been reported stolen from another county.
This case is still under investigation, as the Colleton County Sheriff’s Office is working to with a neighboring agency, according to Shalane Lowes, spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office.
According to McRoy, the fire “appears to have started in an area, where some work involving a torch was being used in the backyard.”
The fire then likely spread through the yard, igniting the storage building and then the mobile home, he said.
However, the S.C. Forestry Commission is investigating this case, along with the Colleton County Sheriffs’ Office.
