Crews from 13 Departments Battle NC Slaughterhouse Fire

July 22, 2020
Extreme heat had around 75 firefighters from more than a dozen departments from multiple counties working in rotating shifts during a blaze that broke out at a slaughterhouse in Bailey.

A North Carolina firefighter was injured during a slaughterhouse blaze that more than a dozen departments responding Wednesday.

Workers at Custom Quality Packers, a slaughterhouse and food packing business in Bailey, noticed smoke coming at the plant shortly after 9 a.m., and evacuated the facility before calling 9-1-1, WNCN-TV reports. Around 75 firefighters from 13 departments around Nash, Franklin and Wilson counties battled the blaze, rotating shifts because of the excessive heat.

“With everything that’s going on, it takes a group of folks to manage a scene like this,” Nash County Deputy Fire Marshal John Frazier told WNCN. “Our No. 1 job is to make sure we take care of life, property, and when we talk about life, we also put animals into that life.”

One firefighter suffered from apparent heat exhaustion  and was taken to the hospital. Around 100 hogs were inside the plant when the fire broke out, and they were safely moved to another facility.