Building Burns In Preston

Fire fighters worked through the night to completely put out the flames at the Franklin County Grain Growers building after a fire broke out just before 4 p.m. on Wednesday.

Franklin County Fire Battalion Chief Scott Martin said it was an overheated bearing on a conveyer belt that ignited some grain dust that quickly engulfed the whole building.

Orange flames slicing the sky and billowing black smoke were the first things Rodney Ogin saw of the fire on his drive home Wednesday afternoon.

“Oh we thought it’s the biggest thing in Preston that’s happened in a long time,” Ogin said.

Martin has been fighting fires in Preston for 30 years. He said Wednesday’s fire was always just a matter of “when” not “if.”

“You know, when I first got on 30 years ago, this has always been one of our spots that we pre-fire planned,” Martin said.

The plan the department had in place worked, even though the flames were so intense that the building will most likely collapse, Martin said.

“When the call came in and they said it was the Franklin County Grain Growers, you always hope it’s just a small one, but when the guys come in to put their bunker gear on, they could see smoke, so right away you knew it was going to be bad,” he said.

But for Preston’s 4,000 people, the fire is about much more than just losing a building.

“This is a main hub for all the ranchers and the farmers around here, and of course spring’s coming, they’re getting ready to plant. But they do have some other places. … But you have employees. It’s a great loss to the community,” Martin said.

Some dairy farmers were in the Stokes Market parking lot watching the fire burn. They said they get their feed from the building, and they’re hoping it was insured in some way, but they don’t really know. The farmers said they are not really sure how to move forward yet.

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Franklin County Grain Growers is burning in Preston.

The building is on South State Street.

Firefighters from all over the region were joining in the effort to combat the smoke and giant orange flames. There was no estimate on when the blaze would be put out.

Firefighters said the building had been a “ticking time bomb” and they were not surprised it had caught fire. Indeed, firefighters from the region helping their local counterparts was part of the plan for when this would happen. About 50 firefighters were at the scene.

They said it probably started from a hot bearing on a conveyor belt. It started around 4 p.m. Officials at the scene said it would likely take four or five hours to actively fight the blaze and then they would monitor it through the night.

We’ll post more details as soon as they are available.