(Spirit Lake)– A minor fire has resulted in the delayed opening of the Wal-Mart store in Spirit Lake this (Thurs.) morning. Spirit Lake Fire Chief Pat Daly says they were called there around 1:30 this (Thurs.) morning…
“They had a building full of smoke. It was back in the automotive section. They had a floor scrubber that was plugged in charging the batteries up and evidently it malfunctioned or something and melted that down.”
Daly says the fire was contained to the one small area but there was smoke and water damage to other areas…
“The sprinkler system kicked in so they got a little bit of a mess from that, but that confined it to that one room but the building had a lot of smoke in there. A big building like that it’s really hard to get the smoke out so we worked at it for awhile. The night manager finally got a hold of somebody that actually turned on their ventilation fans and that helped move some of the smoke out.”
No injuries were reported…
“When we got out there all of the employees that were working at night there, they were all outside, so.”
Daly adds it was a good thing the fire was discovered when it was…
“Yeah because it was back in the battery room back there and there was some flammable stuff back there, in that area.”
Firefighters were on the scene about two and-a-half hours.
***UPDATE: The store reopened around 10:00 am this (Thurs.) morning.
