Fire crews coping with unusual number of cotton warehouse fires

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - Cotton warehouse fires are becoming a common sight here in Lubbock.

The latest was on Monday, as fire crews were called to a cotton fire outside a warehouse in East Lubbock.

This fire burned in the 700 block of East 42nd Street between Avenue A and MLK Boulevard.

Crews are working to put out a burning mote that was pulled from the warehouse after the fire was re-ignited.

This all happened at a warehouse owned by Goetz and Sons, right next door to another warehouse they own that also recently burned.

Chris Carpenter is the President OF Armstrong Plumbing, Air, and Electric and works near the cotton warehouses. He's been here since 1969 and says he has never seen anything like it.

"Never had any fires like this, as long as I can remember," Carpenter said, "and we have had smells from other manufacturing, from other plants and things that have been around, but nothing like this that's this continual and that has gone on so long."

Although there have been several fires, Monday's fire was different for Carpenter because it was right behind his business.

"The firemen were trying to put that fire out and the hose hit the high lines and blew out a transformer," Carpenter said, "and so we lost power for several hours."

Right now, Lubbock fire crews are rotating on a three hour basis to monitor any hot spots at the warehouses.

"Really nothing different than a normal day," Carpenter said, "if its a windy day, just a sunny day, or anything like that at any point in time we can have one to five crews at a time across the city on incidents."

The fire crews make it their mission to treat every fire differently.

"Each fire no matter what it is, if we've been to the same one a thousand times we try to treat it as a brand new event each time and take the knowledge that we know from it to us with the fires."

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