By Sarah Nagem
snagem @salisburypost.com
Firefighters battled two blazes Tuesday afternoon in different parts of
Rowan County.
No one was injured in a mobile home fire in Granite Quarry and a barn
fire off Miller Road.
In Granite Quarry, a fire destroyed a mobile home at 959 White Rock
Ave. Investigators were trying to determine the cause of the blaze,
said Steve Cauble, chief of the Union Volunteer Fire Department.
Kerry Worthy, 28, and her boyfriend, David Dudley, had been living in
the mobile home for about a year, Worthy said. Dudley’s brother and
Worthy’s three children, ages 10, 8 and 7 also lived there.
Worthy said she and her boyfriend had been at a neighbor’s house nearby
when the fire broke out. Her children were away with their father, she
said.
“I saw the window was on fire and smoke all through the house,” Worthy
said. “I couldn’t even go in there.”
Worthy said she thought a window air conditioner in the living room
might have caught fire. She installed the air conditioner about a week
ago, she said. The fire started in the living room and quickly spread,
Cauble said. “It usually doesn’t take but a few minutes in a mobile
home,” he said.
The fire marshal was investigating the cause of the blaze. Worthy said
the family had been burning trash in a barrel outside the home, but
Cauble said it was unlikely the cause of the fire.
The occupants of the house planned to stay with a neighbor, Worthy
said. The family’s possessions were destroyed.
“I didn’t expect this,” she said.
Earlier in the afternoon, firefighters fought a blaze at a barn at 3510
Miller Road. Robert Miller, whose family owned the barn, said he had
dropped off a load of straw at the barn. He said a spark from the truck
might have caught the hay or straw on fire.
“I went back to the field to get another load and saw a big cloud of
smoke at the barn,” Miller said.
The barn contained 90 large bales of hay and 1,000 small bales of
straw, Miller said.
Firefighters spent about 20 minutes extinguishing the flames, which
sparked at about 3:40 p.m., said Rusty Alexander, chief of the Locke
Volunteer Fire Department.
The barn was fully engulfed with flames, he said.
“We got the fire contained so it won’t spread to the adjacent barns,”
Alexander said.
The N.C. Forestry Service was planning to bring bulldozers from
Lexington to spread out the bales, he said. Spreading them out helps
firefighters ensure the fire is completely out.
The Miller family said they dealt with a fire last summer, too. A spark
from a piece of farm equipment caught a field on fire.
Locke, West Rowan, Bostian Heights, Landis and China Grove fire
departments responded to the Miller Road fire, as did Rowan County
Rescue.
Union, Granite Quarry, Rockwell Rural and Faith fire departments
responded to the mobile home fire.