Officials investigating blaze at peanut processing facility
Published 6:21 pm Tuesday, October 8, 2019
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GARYSBURG – Damage has occurred at a Monday blaze at John B. Sanfilippo & Son, located off Highway 46 near here.
The company, which has been in the Garysburg area since the early 1990s, is a peanut processor.
Garysburg Fire Chief Nathaniel Ausby said at the scene on Monday that firefighters were waiting to go back in the area where the fire originated to check for, and extinguish, any hotspots.
He said when firefighters received the call shortly before 10:45 a.m. they found the building where the fire possibility originated engulfed.
Ausby could not immediately speak to the extent of damages. He did confirm product was damaged during the fire.
Emergency management officials confirmed there were no known injuries.
Firefighters from Garysburg, Gaston, Roanoke-Wildwood and Weldon responded to the blaze.
Ausby said it took firefighters around an hour to get the blaze under control to a point firefighters could back in and check for hotspots.
According to the company’s website, 70 million pounds of in-shell peanuts are shelled and processed annually at the 160,000-square-foot facility.
Its cold storage capacity is 3.5 million pounds.
(Lance Martin is the Editor and Publisher of www.rrpin.com. Permission was granted to publish this story.)