ABOVE & BEYOND

ABOVE & BEYOND — Union City firefighters were operating about 100 feet in the air Monday when they responded to smoke coming from the top of an elevator at Harvest Grain at 315 West Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. The Union City Fire Department positioned its ladder truck and sent up a crew to find the fire, working with facility personnel for technical advice and to shut down power. Union City Fire Chief Karl Ullrich said they had to disassemble some conveyor belt housings in order to access the fire and found the bulk of the damage to be a rubber conveyor belt which was burning. The UCFD was operating at the absolute limit of its ladder truck, which saved a lot of trips up stairs and having to string several hundred more feet of hose by hand all the way up. The Rives and South Fulton fire departments were also dispatched via auto aid, with both diverted to the UCFD’s Central Fire Station for standby for the duration of the fire. The incident was reported at 11:28 a.m. and the fire was out at 12:59 p.m., with firefighters remaining on the scene until about 2:30 p.m. to extinguish smoldering spots and wrap up. Ullrich said damage was essentially confined to a single conveyor system. The exact cause is undetermined. He commended the team effort between firefighters and Harvest Grain personnel, noting the fire department has conducted some training there in the past and plans more in the future.