Fire in Granite Falls- Shuford Mills Building

redneck grrrl

redneck grrrl

That girl
Joined
Mar 12, 2007
Location
Dudley Shoals, NC
Still no word on what caused it, clean up can't begin until the fire investigators come in and it is said they won't go in until Thursday or Friday of this week. With 300+/- storage units and no idea what is burning, the fire was still smoking this morning. It is reported that the owner of the building had no insurance...???. Most of the people who had their belongings stored there had no renters insurance. Good news is one of our fellow wheelers John Fowler has his garage in there and at this point the building is still intact. All of the cars inside have heat damage, and I'm sure that all of his equipment and tools have heat/ water damage. We were allowed to go inside about 1am Saturday morning to move what we could out and secure what we could. --photo by Chad Linebarger

18449345_10209868160885159_1691085192522090784_o.jpg


20286872_10209868160645153_2877507413724085874_o.jpg


the young man on the left is my son Samuel
20232043_10209868169165366_7911952554162035875_o.jpg
 
Sucks for everyone involved, but nice photography.
 
Seen a video of the blaze Friday. That was one nasty fire.
 
jeepinmatt said:
Amazing to watch it grow in that first video.
Click to expand...
Should have seen it in person. I have never experienced anything like this in my life, truly terrifying experience. When the fire department said they were not even trying to put out the fire, just save surrounding buildings and you could see in their faces that they were worried. It truly took our entire town to do this. The hydrants ran dry.
 
so even if he contacted a sprinkler company they probably wouldnt have had time to work them into the schedule yet. he better just hope he had called someone and made an effort to get fire extinguishers put out.
 
All those infractions and lack of insurance by the owner spells......take the customers money and run.

Would not be surprised if a renter caused this by using his space as a work shop.....or more specific a drug lab.

Edit... Another angle.
Inspection, deadlines, big interior, fire.......hmmmm arson. But no insurance rumour. I can't see the criminal angle of benefit by the owner. But some pissed of tenant? Maybe.
 
Last edited:
Probably couldn't get insurance on the building because of the non existant fire protection. Probably couldn't get fire stuff updated because not enough money. Probably not enough money because of low rent on sketchy old mill building with no fire protection. Vicious cycle.
 
jeepinmatt said:
Probably couldn't get insurance on the building because of the non existant fire protection. Probably couldn't get fire stuff updated because not enough money. Probably not enough money because of low rent on sketchy old mill building with no fire protection. Vicious cycle.
Click to expand...
So how did they get permitted to be up in running? Commercial space? For profit? Mutiple types of occupancy? Seems to point to a mandentory fully functioning sprinkler maybe even higher end dry chemical stuff.

Let alone insurance for opperation.

Just being devil's advocate at this...I've saw much smaller facilities get refused or shut down because of very minor stuff.

Something spells swept under the rug on this one.
 
If that's common storage facility practice I need to throw up some sheds and a chain link fence.
 
Caldwell County, duh! This is a forum full of people who like to do things by the book, but a lot of the world does not operate that way.
 
I don't think a lot of people know what was going on in those buildings. I always thought that they were vacant until a buddy started to rent a space and I actually went in there.
 
Yeah a lot of legal shit hit the fan.

I would be surprised if even local business didn't get involved.

Granite Falls clearly was under manned, under planned, and either mis informed or blind eyed to what was going down in that structure.
 
Last edited:
Due to the age of the building they may not have required sprinklers. We don't have sprinklers in our FD :eek: because of the age of the building. Also no exhaust collection in the bay which backs up to the living quarters.


A couple years ago my friends cabinet shop burnt down. The original building was built in the 50's and when the fire Marshall arrived they really got shitty with him until they discovered he had no insurance. The lack of sprinklers was a combination of age and the fact that the building hadn't been inspected since the 80's. It has just slipped off of the desk somewhere and never seen again.

Lots of these old Mills and factories around here are owned by an individual that inherited it down the line and is just holding it for the property. If they can make enough to pay the taxes they have won. Now he can sell the property to Dollar General and move on. As long as no one was hurt the tenants probably don't have the funds to mount a proper lawsuit.
 
GotWood said:
Due to the age of the building they may not have required sprinklers. We don't have sprinklers in our FD :eek: because of the age of the building. Also no exhaust collection in the bay which backs up to the living quarters.


A couple years ago my friends cabinet shop burnt down. The original building was built in the 50's and when the fire Marshall arrived they really got shitty with him until they discovered he had no insurance. The lack of sprinklers was a combination of age and the fact that the building hadn't been inspected since the 80's. It has just slipped off of the desk somewhere and never seen again.

Lots of these old Mills and factories around here are owned by an individual that inherited it down the line and is just holding it for the property. If they can make enough to pay the taxes they have won. Now he can sell the property to Dollar General and move on. As long as no one was hurt the tenants probably don't have the funds to mount a proper lawsuit.
Click to expand...
It's funny a fire department gets away with that. I know of a few old mill buildings in down town Hickory. All required to install and update sprinklers. Even a residence. No sprinkler no occupancy. Business, multi use, storage all required to be updated.
 
Back
Top