Investigation ensues after Pig in a Pit fire

     Many driving on U.S. Highway 441 last Sunday night saw the intense flames coming from the Pig in a Pit, which destroyed the restaurant along with its neighbor, the Discount Mattress.
     The fire, which started in the Pig in a Pit after it had been closed for the night, also caused smoke and water damage to the Video Warehouse.
     According to Derek Chitwood, a graduate of GCSU and employee of Pig in a Pit, he and three other employees, including a manager, closed down the restaurant around 5:20 p.m. and everything looked fine.
     About three hours later, Chitwood was with a friend driving to Wal-Mart when he drove by and saw the fire.  
     “We saw smoke so we pulled around back and we called 911, they said the fire trucks were on their way,” Chitwood said. “By the time they got there the whole store was pretty much on fire.”
      The first 911 call was made at 8:19 and the first fire trucks, from Dunlap Station Number 2 arrived on the scene approximately three minutes later, according to Chief Tom Dietrich. Eventually, Dietrich said, additional help was needed from the stations on Thomas, Hardwick and N. Baldwin streets.
     “They needed more manpower,” GCSU sophomore and volunteer firefighter Kevin Sheehan said. “Obviously it’s a huge structure so they paged the volunteers. Right when I got there the roof collapsed and the gas tank was blowing up.”
     A series of road blocks and detours were set up on U.S. Highway 441 to ensure the area was free of drivers. It took about five hours to completely extinguish the fire, according to Sheehan.
     Investigators have visited the burnt remains of the Pig in a Pit and the Discount Mattress in an attempt to determine the cause of the fire.
     Each company – Pig in a Pit, Discount Mattress and Video Warehouse – affected by the fire, has different insurance companies and thus three different investigators working on the case, according to Dietrich.
     “At this time (the investigators) have gone and helped independent of one another and they are going to get together one day this week,” Dietrich said. “What they’re going to do is have all of the investigators arrive and work at the same time to determine the cause of the fire.”
     Luckily, the Pig in a Pit had already begun construction on a new location in the downtown area of Milledgeville.
     Although they had already planned a move, the Pig in a Pit owners were very upset by the fire, according to Chitwood.
“They had personal belongings inside,” Chitwood said. “I called one of my owners and she was freaking out and worried if it was her fault.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Feb 22 2008. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry