Man burning papers sets his shop on fire

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, AR – Firefighters have contained a shop fire at a home on Oak Grove, despite having difficulties getting water to the scene.

Firefighters were called out to 3212 Oak Grove Road around 4:15pm Wednesday. The homeowner, Marvin Jones, tells Fox 16 that the fire started from some papers he was burning.

"I was burning some papers and I guess the wind came up when I went to the phone. A few minutes later my neighbor said something's burning so I went back there to look and some tires caught fire,” said Jones.

Jones says firefighters were close to putting out the fire, but ran out of water, and the fire flared back up again.

"The nearest hydrant is half a mile away so we set up our tanker and water shuttle operation supplying water to keep a constant flow,” said Lt. Jeremy Ward with the Oak Grove Fire Department. "We had technical difficulties trouble with our pumpers getting going, so we started shuttling water from other trucks and we got right back into fighting the blaze."

Jones’ shop contained ATV parts, 4-wheelers, and tires. Jones was able to save some of machines by rolling them into the front yard while his shop burned. It took fire crews 45 minutes to contain the blaze, now all that is left of his shop is twisted metal and charred parts.

Jones also kept chemicals in his shop, so as a precaution the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality came out to make sure nothing hazardous would require evacuations. ADEQ will be out on Thursday to assess how to clean up what burned.

Jones’ house and garage were untouched by the fire. Jones says he has insurance and will be calling them in the morning when he begins the long process of cleaning up the mess.