By Simone Jasper
The News Tribune
HENDERSON COUNTY, N.C. — A fire station burned down in North Carolina, destroying a truck bound for California wildfires, officials said.
The blaze ravaged Mills River Fire Department’s Station No. 2 early Friday, Jan. 17, according to a spokesperson for Henderson County, North Carolina.
No one was injured in the fire at the unmanned station. The building had been storing equipment, and one of the trucks lost in the fire was getting ready to go to California to help fight wildfires, which have turned deadly in the Los Angeles area.
“A brush truck was being prepped to head out west,” chief communications officer Mike Morgan told McClatchy News in an email. “There were three vehicles in the station and all were destroyed.”
As of noon Jan. 17, fire marshals were investigating the cause of the blaze in Mills River, a roughly 15-mile drive south from Asheville. The fire left the building “totally destroyed” months after Hurricane Helene battered the region with strong winds and devastating flooding in September.
“Even though it’s a loss in the county, it’s more of a loss to those guys,” Morgan told the Asheville Citizen-Times. “Especially Mills River, they got hit pretty hard during (Tropical Storm Helene).”
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