A storage building/woodworking shop and its contents in the Mulberry community were destroyed by fire Monday night.
Wilkes Fire Marshall Niki Hamby the fire, near the end of John McGrady Road, apparently began from a fire that had been started in a wood stove in the building earlier Monday.
He said the wood frame building with a metal roof belonged to Alan Shumate and was about 100 yards from the Shumate home. Contents destroyed included a zero-turn mower, motorcycle, side-by-side four-wheeler and tools, said Hamby.
Shumate lit the fire in woodstove when he was working in the workshop and left it burning when he left, Hamby added. Shumate’s wife discovered the blaze. Firefighters kept it from spreading to a barn about 12 feet away. Firefighters were dispatched to the fire, in the Mulberry-Fairplains district, about 8:40 p.m.