After about 40 hours of pumping an estimated 2.5 million gallons of water, firefighters waging a battle against a large warehouse fire on Champion Ferry Road were finally able to declare the fire under control at 7:15 p.m. Friday.
But even after the fire was deemed out, it was expected there would be some puffs of smoke worth monitoring and plenty of work remained. Chief among the tasks was finding out how the massive fire started at the former Peeler Rug Company building, which was filled with plastic auto parts destined for recycling.
The storage building that caught fire was approximately 60,000 square feet in size. Cherokee Creek Volunteer Fire Department Chief Billy Bishop said about 23,000 square feet of recyclable product were stored in the parking lot that burned as well.