Thursday Fire Results In Complete Loss of Byrdstown Business

A commercial structure fire destroyed Byrdstown’s Country Farm and Home Lawn and Garden facility Thursday morning.

The building center was not impacted.

Firefighters responded around 6am. Fire Chief Garry Garrett said departments from surrounding counties including Overton and Monroe helped with the response. Garrett said the building had been burning for some time before firefighters arrived.

“Smoke’s still going,” Garrett said. “It’ll burn for days, I mean, because the roof fell in and you can’t really get under that to put out the fire, so, I mean, it was still smoking as we left.  We got over there, like I said, we received a call about 6:00pm this morning and we left, I think, we left somewhere maybe around 1:00pm-2:00pm.”

Garrett said the facility is a total loss. No one was inside. No injuries. The investigation continues.

“We started setting up to the hydrants and, you know, trying to get the water going to it,” Garrett said. “Trying to figure out how to get into the fire and where the fire’s at. Just try to get in there and start to kill stuff down as quickly as possible.”

He said the ability to call on neighboring departments for help with a fire of this magnitude is great. He said typically a fire this large is a rarity, but the county has seen three major commercial fires in the past year.

“They’ve actually got like the building supply on one side,” Garrett said. “This was the farm supply, outdoor supply, you know with the lawnmowers and steel equipment and stuff like that.”