Monday, October 13, 2008
Fireworks Supermarket burns
Watch news coverage and helicopter video
In Murfreesboro, TN people had to check their calenders to make sure it wasn't July 4th. For more than an hour, beginning at 5:00 PM, fireworks exploded as the Fireworks Supermarket showroom on South Church Street near I-24 caught fire. No injuries have been reported. News reports indicate that about 1000 spectators gathered to see the unscheduled display.
Click above for WTVF-TV helicopter coverage
More details from Mark Bell at DNJ.com (click here for DNJ.com video):
Murfreesboro firefighters fought a blaze at Fireworks Supermarket Monday evening that, at times, fought back.
Hundreds of thousands of fireworks, including dangerous commercial type explosives, randomly misfired throughout the evening and late into Monday night as the store burned to the ground.
The area around the South Church Street store looked and sounded more like a war zone than commercial Murfreesboro for most of the evening, but luckily no one was injured by the fire.
When the fire threatened a neighboring Exxon On the Run gas station, located approximately 20 feet from the fireworks store, Murfreesboro Assistant Fire Chief Gary Farley said there was potential there for “a real disaster.”
A drooping power line on the property was also a concern at one point, Farley added. Power to the Fireworks Supermarket and neighboring Exxon was cut off by workers from the Murfreesboro Electric Department in an attempt to prevent any more potential hazards from forming.
Farley later called the store a “total loss.”
To keep firefighters from being injured and the fire from spreading the Murfreesboro Fire Department employed a defensive type approach to extinguish the blaze.
Most of the city’s fire trucks responded to the fire, along with Rutherford County Emergency Services and the Murfreesboro Police Department, according to Farley.
Moments before the fire erupted at the store, Murfreesboro Police Detective Tannas Knox said she saw smoke and a small firework explode in front of the building.
Knox, who had just gotten off work, said she spotted black smoke and fireworks at 5:31 p.m. She called dispatch to see if it had been reported. Dispatchers said that was the first call they had received.
“Within two minutes after I made the call it was fully engulfed,” she said.
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