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East Lubbock Cotton Warehouse Catches Fire

May 31, 2018   5:33 PM

The Lubbock Fire Department was called out to an East Lubbock cotton warehouse at 5:33 pm Monday, and for the next several hours they battled the blaze. The fire is out now, but the cause of the fire is still under investigation. “It’s too early to speculate on the cause of the fire. We do have significant fire damage and smoke damage.” That was the assessment of Lubbock Fire Chief Mike Kemp. If Monday were not Memorial Day, there may have been people working in or around the cotton warehouse near 46th and Globe in East Lubbock. Instead, when the LSM Solutions building caught fire around 5:30, the building was empty. That’s good thing considering what’s inside is little more than kindling. “What we think’s burning inside is cedar fiber and cotton seed. There’s also an office space that’s been involved,” Kemp said. The fire is so hot and the metal warehouse so unstable that Kemp says his firefighters have no choice but to take a defensive stance. “If a fire’s gone for a good amount of time which this one has, you start worrying about mental fatigue and about collapse. So we did pull people outside. We are working in a defensive mode, but we are making headway on some openings that we have in the walls,” Kemp said. Memorial Day was already a scorcher, and this fire has made things hotter. Kemp says the fire department is looking out for its men, and they’ll be there until the fire is finally out. “We’re making sure that there safe and getting refreshments and some water and getting them back on the fire. So we are working it right now. We’ll be able to give you a little bit more later on,” Kemp said.

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