Leesville, SC (Paul Kirby) – Saturday afternoon, Lexington County firefighters were fighting a commercial structure fire in the 400 block of Truex Road between Fairview, Leesville, and the Pond Branch area of the county. The first calls regarding the fire began coming in just before 2:00 p.m. Buck’s Frame and Alignment, a very well-known used parts and alignment shop that has been in business for many years, is located at the address the fire service was first dispatched to. Its property is filled with salvage cars that consumers can buy used parts from. According to Juanita Marsh Gunter, a member of the family who owns the business, the shop itself has been destroyed by the fire.
The fire was initially reported as a brush fire that was threatening a structure. The first LCFS units that arrived reported that the fire had spread to a number of cars and a shop building. They also said that someone was on the scene trying to push some of the other salvage cars out of the way of the fire with a tractor. At this point, they upgraded the fire to a commercial response that brought more equipment, manpower, and supervisory personnel.
As additional chiefs arrived on scene, they made the decision to set up a point on Neely Wingard Road to pull water out of a preset source near the bridge. That would be used to fill the tankers that were carrying water to the fire. A sheriff’s deputy was requested to help with the traffic at the point that the tankers were filling. An EMS unit was also moved to the fire scene to help with the rehabilitation of the firefighters battling the blaze. Other fire units were moved up to empty stations to cover areas whose fire resources were committed to the fire. The fire commander also asked for assistance from Lexington County Public Works and the SC Forestry Commission as well.
At 3:12 p.m., the fire was still considered a working fire. By 4:15 p.m., the fire's incident commander had asked that DHEC respond to the scene regarding pollutants that were either in the shop or leaking from the cars that had burned.
Motorists are asked to stay out of the area. We will update this story as we receive more information.
