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Story and photos byBob Bartosz
Shortly after midnight on August 25, 2016, Nash County (NC) 911 Center began receiving calls for a building fire on Lancaster Store Road in the Castalia area of Nash County.
Station 7 Castalia Fire Company, Station 17 Momeyer Fire Co., Station 6 Spring Hope Fire Co., and Nash County EMS units were dispatched. The first-in unit was Castalia reported they had a large 40 x 170 foot storage building heavily involved with fire. The building was 15-feet high, with a large tin roof housing over 20,000 bales of hay along with four tractors and farm equipment). There were no fire hydrants for water supply within a mile from the fire.
The incident commander requested additional tankers to be dispatched. Companies from station 14 Nashville fire Co along two department from Franklin County fire stations Justice and White Level, responded. Within a half an hour the side walls collapsed, causing tin roof to collapse on top of the thousands of bales of hay. This made it virtually impossible for crews to get water on the hay.
Dump tanks were being placed on the rural road, making it very difficult for the tankers to shuttle back and forth.Firefightershad to travel over one mile to the nearest fire hydrant for water supply. Two hours into the fire most of the building had collapsed. There were now six water lines working on the fire.
