Galion Fire Department officials are looking at spontaneous combustion as the cause of a fire Sunday morning at Covert Manufacturing, 328 East St., Galion.
The fire was originally reported around 6:30 a.m.
Galion Fire Chief Phil Jackson said the building was empty at the time of the report.
“We got the call after the sprinkler went off and triggered the alarm,” he said. “The building had quite a bit of moist, very rotten, almost peat moss like areas where the fire began. It’s similar to moist hay/straw and wet mulch by a porch catching fire. We were able to eliminate all other causes.”
Damage estimates were at $20,000 for the building, $10,000 for contents, Jackson said.
“No other departments were called as we knocked it down relatively quickly,” he said. “According to the owners, the room where it started was not used much and stored old files and stuff with lots of file cabinets, binders and boxes of papers.”
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Pugh is the Group Content Editor for the Galion Inquirer, Bellville Star, Morrow County Sentinel and Knox County Citizen. You can reach him at [email protected] and on Twitter at @pughcivitas.
