Fire not ‘suspicious’

Published 8:37 am Wednesday, December 29, 2010

An early morning fire on Christmas Eve that burned down a 20,000-square-foot warehouse in the Antioch community “doesn’t appear to be anything suspicious,” the county fire chief said.

The blaze occurred at the Garland Sales warehouse at 1800 Antioch Road and the structure was almost completely destroyed by the time Whitfield County firefighters arrived, Chief Carl Collins said Tuesday. No one was inside.

“An insurance investigator was here this morning and his comment to us was that he was going to call for an electrical engineer to check (for a cause),” Collins said. “It’s not real safe to be in there right now.”

He said a neighbor saw flames where the electrical service entered the building through a drop line from the street.

Owner Rick Garland said the building housed sewing and cutting equipment for making rugs. Between 15 and 20 people worked there, and have been moved across the street to Garland Sales’ larger facility, he said.