Pingleton Sawmill warehouse lost to fire

Sunday, March 15, 2020 ~ Updated 10:24 PM
Banner Graphic/JARED JERNAGAN

For nearly nine hours Sunday night into Monday morning, firefighters battled a blaze at Pingleton Sawmill.

But with literally tons of fuel inside, the warehouse at the Madison Township business wound up a total loss.

The report of the fire came in at 6:35 p.m. and Madison Township Volunteer Fire Department Chief Lee Price was on scene within eight minutes.

“Of course I could see a heavy column of black smoke,” Price said. “When I got there, heavy black smoke was showing. I made entry into a front door to see what I could see. I opened a door to see what I could see and that room was full of black smoke and fire.”

More Madison Township crews weren’t far behind — followed by 15 more area fire departments.

A crew of three firefighters initially made entry on the south side of the building, but within a minute or so, they were coming back out as the metal roof of the pole building began to collapse.

Just before 7 p.m. Sunday, fire broke out at the Pingleton Sawmill, west of Greencastle.

“And then it becomes a defensive attack,” Price said.

Besides the wooden interior structure of the warehouse, it housed stacks of dried wood, some if which had been in the warehouse for two or three years.

Initially, without backup from other tankers and firefighters just yet, crews faced a water shortage. There is a pond on the Pingleton property, but the ground was too soft for trucks to get close enough to draft water from it.

“The biggest problem with the whole ordeal was, of course water,” Price said. “Trying to get to an area where the ground wasn’t soft to set up drafts.”

And so, as tankers showed up and emptied their initial loads, they were sent either to the Madison Township Fire Station or to a hydrant in Greencastle to refill.

Eventually, firefighters were also able to draft off of the pond as well.

Capt. Brian Poole of the Greencastle Fire Department coordinated the water supply, which went much smoother with a full compliment of tankers.

“After we got our tankers there, water was not a problem,” Price said. “It took a while because we had to wait on everybody to get there, but once we got everybody there the interruptions of water didn’t happen.”

And that flow of water was needed, between fighting the fire from above with the Greencastle Fire Department aerial truck as well as hand lines from the ground.

Contributing departments included Madison Township, Greencastle, Fillmore, Floyd Township, Clinton Township, Bainbridge, Roachdale, Russellville, Putnamville, Reelsville, Cloverdale and Jefferson Township from Putnam County, as well as Bellmore (which sent three tankers), Rockville, Van Buren and Bridgeton from Parke County.

“It was really good work by every department involved,” Price said.

In all, the sixteen departments sent 64 firefighters and, by a conservative estimated, used 250,000-300,000 gallons of water to fight the fire.

Even with these numbers, it wasn’t easy to keep the blaze from getting even more out of control and possibly spreading to other buildings.

Besides having a Cloverdale truck west of the building to keep embers from igniting a nearby shed, crews later had to deal with a collapsed roof that shielded the blaze from the aerial truck.

“When it collapsed in the center, it pulled everything in,” Price said. “So the aerial wasn’t really doing any good. It was spraying metal.”

At that point, firefighters enlisted some outside help, with David Sutherlin bringing in and excavator and Stacy Patterson running a front end loader to make parts of the fire more accessible.

“If it hadn’t been for them, it would’ve still been burning pretty good, right now (Monday afternoon),” Price said.

Instead, crews were there until the wee hours of the morning, with the last truck leaving the County Road 550 West address at 3:20 a.m.

A falling roof and drifting embers weren’t the only dangers firefighters faced, as there were LP tanks in the building that blew during the fire.

Fortunately, no one was injured in the incident.

Other assisting agencies on the scene included the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department and Putnam County EMS.

The American Red Cross also brought food and water for the firefighters, while owner Lee Pingleton’s daughters brought something like 15 Papa John’s pizzas to the scene.

Based on initial observations, firefighters believe the fire started in the warehouse portion of the building, in the southeast to middle section. No cause was determined.

Price hopes to never have another fire at the sawmill, but says the Pingletons and the fire department plan to be more prepared should it happen.

“Lee Pingleton and I talked today and we’re going to get a dry hydrant installed at his place,” Price said. “Hopefully we never have to go back, but we’re going to try and fix the problem if we ever have it again.”

Comments
View 4 comments
Note: The nature of the Internet makes it impractical for our staff to review every comment. Please note that those who post comments on this website may do so using a screen name, which may or may not reflect a website user's actual name. Readers should be careful not to assign comments to real people who may have names similar to screen names. Refrain from obscenity in your comments, and to keep discussions civil, don't say anything in a way your grandmother would be ashamed to read.
  • In such a hurry to post the negative, why not the positive? Fire has been out since 3:00.' Where is the update?

    -- Posted by live4thehunt.jo on Mon, Mar 16, 2020, at 11:50 AM
  • Prayers to the Pingleton Family and their employees

    -- Posted by small town girl on Mon, Mar 16, 2020, at 12:12 PM
  • Thank you to all of those first responders that worked this incident. Such a risky job along with everything else that is going on! Prayers to the Pingleton family and their employees!

    -- Posted by mamawjane1951 on Tue, Mar 17, 2020, at 8:51 AM
  • Great job by all responding fire departments. Thoughts and prayers go out to all the Pingleton family.

    -- Posted by Queen53 on Tue, Mar 17, 2020, at 10:38 AM
Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: