A Forsyth County business was destroyed by fire on Wednesday morning. It was passing motorists who saw the smoke and called in to alert fire crews that Rakestraw Sanitation on Browns Bridge Road was in trouble.
According to Division Chief Jason Shivers with the Forsyth County Fire Department, the building at 4065 Browns Bridge Road in North Forsyth wasn’t occupied at the time, which was a good thing, but problematic in that it burned for quite some time before fire crews arrived on scene. “It sits off the road, so by the time the smoke became large enough for someone to see it, the fire was well involved. There was no salvaging the structure at all. “
Soon after fire crews arrived, the building collapsed. Also, Shivers reported there were a few small explosions, but he says that was attributed to the products stored inside the building.
This particular building was used by Rakestraw Sanitation as their maintenance and storage building, according to Shivers, and it was where they maintained trucks, stored materials and kept records.
There were no injuries reported.
It took fire crews many hours on scene, causing some major road delays. “This section of the road is a heavily trafficked road. We had to stretch water supply lines along and down Browns Bridge Road,” said Shivers. “That was a big challenge to get traffic negotiated around the incident so we could work safely.”
There is still no word on the cause of the fire, and there is an investigation to determine what happened.
