April 24th, 2020 by WCBC Radio
The Cumberland Times News reports an early Friday fire on the Burlington United Methodist Family Services campus destroyed a maintenance building that housed various equipment and tools used in the agency’s annual Apple Harvest Festival. No one was injured. Cindy Pyles, the agency's resource development manager, said there were 27 youths on site in residential cottages at the time of the fire. Some of them were temporarily relocated to a nearby gymnasium building as a precaution.
Discovered about 1 a.m. by staff, the building was reportedly engulfed in flames when Burlington Volunteer Fire Department arrived. Firefighters were called back to the campus multiple times after first extinguishing it for rekindles.
"We lost a one-of-a-kind apple peeler, copper kettles, electric stirrers, all of our jars. It's all gone and the building was destroyed,” Pyles said. "We were in the process of finishing a new maintenance building.”
Pyles said it wasn’t yet known if the fire would affect this year’s festival, which is scheduled Oct. 3-4.
The fire also destroyed overhead telephone lines, creating a widespread phone outage in Mineral and Hampshire counties.
The West Virginia State Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating the cause
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