Eatonton Fire Department firefighters responded to a fire call Monday night and found a shed fully engulfed in flames.
Eatonton Fire Chief Jamey Williamson said the building was an old wooden storage shed approximately 16 ft. by 40 ft. with a tin roof. Although the shed was a complete loss, a few unexpected challenges arose while fighting the fire.
Located at 159 Imperial Mill Road, the old shed shared property with a larger metal shop, an RV camper, a single-wide trailer with multiple residents living in it, and their vehicles in the yard. The rest of the property behind the shed is wooded. So, Williamson called in the Putnam County Fire Department to help keep the fire from spreading and getting out of hand.
The mobile home was rented, and the residents called the property owner, who arrived shortly after, Williamson said. The owner said a squatter had been staying in the building but had been asked to leave. He didn’t know if the squatter was still around.
“The storage shed was full of all kinds of stuff, gasolines and oils being stored, everything just burned up,” Williamson described. “It’s almost burned to the ground. There are probably two to three charred posts still standing, but that’s about it.”
The owner said there was no electricity hooked up to the storage shed, but as they battled the blaze, firefighters occasionally saw some electrical arcing. They noticed an electrical extension cord in the shed that appeared to be connected to a next-door neighbor’s house, and assumed that was the source of the arcing.
After the fire was out, the state fire marshal was called in to help determine its cause.
As the fire marshal and Williamson were about to step into the charred remains of the building, “all of a sudden, there was more arcing,” Williamson said.
“We called Georgia Power, but there was no overhead line,” he added. “Yet, there was a high-voltage type arcing.”
A call to the owner revealed that there was an underground power line running from the blue metal shop to the little shed.
“The owner didn’t even know it was still connected,” Williamson said. “He said, ‘No wonder our electric bill has been so high.’”
The cause of the fire remains undetermined.
“There was so much combustible material in there that burned everything up, so the state fire marshal told me it was hard to determine the cause,” Williamson said.
The fire started around 9:30 p.m., and the fire chief said he finally left the scene near midnight. Imperial Mill Road was closed for about an hour while they fought the blaze. No one was hurt in the fire, and the squatter couldn't be found.