Mill fire put out after four-day effort

By Denice Thibodeau

Published: May 14, 2008

It took four full days of working around the clock, but Danville Fire Chief David Eagle said Tuesday that the last traces of fire at the Long Mill complex were finally put out Monday evening.

Eagle said the city ultimately had to bring in a crane to knock down the walls that had not yet collapsed so firefighters could get to areas that were still on fire Monday.

“The buildings were extremely unstable. They were somewhat unstable before the fire, let alone once the fire weakened the walls,” he said. “We had huge walls that were a collapse threat and we weren’t able to put crews inside the buildings.”

The threat of the standing walls collapsing, combined with lack of access to areas where walls had already collapsed, made reaching some of the burning areas a problem, Eagle said.

“We actually had to move those walls to take away the collapse threat and remove part of the debris so we could get the water where it needed to go,” he said.

Eagle praised the city’s water system for providing firefighters with all the water they needed to battle the blaze that was sparked Thursday afternoon in a pile of debris.

While the on-site water had been disconnected, cutting off both sprinklers and hydrants, the fire

department had required the mill’s owners to install two working hydrants, one at each end of the property.

“That was a minimum agreement to allow them the time to either bring the property up to code or to eliminate the problems,” Eagle said. “We also had to use hydrants on side streets around the property.”

He admitted a site the size of the Long Mill property, which is about 28 acres, would normally have had more than two hydrants, and called the agreement with the owners “a temporary fix.”

The fire department did have to run extra hoses to reach the hydrants on Short Street, Farrar Street and part of Riverside Drive, Eagle said, noting the streets were closed down to allow firefighters to run the hoses as well as to take the precaution of evacuating the residents.

“We had very good pressure in those areas and very good flow,” he said. “We were flowing a whole lot of water for a long period of time, and at no point did we ever come close to being short on water.”

INVESTIGATION CONTINUES

The fire chief said it could take some time before the entire investigation is complete.

“Our investigation will take as long as it takes,” Eagle said, adding that the first report was just the on-site physical investigation that showed the fire started in a pile of debris and was blown into the buildings by high winds.

“But everything else will be ongoing as information comes forward, and as we continue to interview people, look at photos and look at footage,” he said. “We were there in under three minutes.

“(It was) such a large fire, there were a lot of people there early on and we’ve got quite a bit of footage and photos to look at.”

Eagle said containment of the fire, which destroyed two mill buildings, was the biggest issue at first.

“That old, dried out timber was full of oil and grease and years of textile (debris). It’s basically just kindling wood. When it got going, it went pretty quick and once it got into the building, there was no way of stopping it.

“The only thing we could do was contain it and keep it off the residential areas. To do all that and have no injuries was a success for us.”

PERMITS ANDLICENSES

Questions have arisen over whether Vintage Building Products, the South Carolina company handling the demolition of Long Mill, had all the proper licenses and permits in place.

Jerry Rigney, director of inspections for Danville, said the company was issued a permit to demolish Long Mill without a Virginia contractor’s license, because one is not required in certain instances.

“This is an unusual situation because a contractor is a person who works for a fixed price or fee,” Rigney said. “In this particular case, there was no fee involved. The Long Mill Group was not paying Vintage any money.”

He said he checked with Eric Olson, executive director of the Virginia Board of Contractors, to confirm his findings and was reassured that Vintage did not need a contractor’s license because it was not being paid and was going to reclaim the building materials.

Rigney said the city did require Vintage to put up the same type of performance bond contractors usually have to file, and the city has a $5,000 bond on file.

Such a bond ensures the city will have funds on hand to do any necessary cleanup if a company leaves a site in unacceptable condition, he said.

Justin Garofalo, a licensing specialist at the Board of Contractors, confirmed that unpaid work is not considered contracting.

James Gillie, Danville’s Commission of Revenue, said Tuesday that Vintage also has a business license on file for the project.

Contact Denice Thibodeau at or (434) 791-7985.