PINE BLUFF, Ark. — After a vacant church went up in flames over the weekend, public safety officials in Pine Bluff are now sharing their concerns with abandoned buildings.
Cities across Central Arkansas have been dealing with abandoned structures and the dangers that they pose to the community and the people who live there. This all comes after two vacant buildings caught on fire during the past two months.
On Sunday evening, the Pine Bluff Fire Department was notified of a large structure fire at a vacant building on 6th Ave. and Laurel that had previously been a church.
Fire Chief Shauwn Howell explained how there's an ongoing issue across our state of vacant buildings catching on fire.
"Oftentimes owners just let them sit there and that's where we get to this point," he explained.
Chief Howell said it took his crew hours to put out the flames on Sunday, and they're still working to figure out what caused the fire.
"It's an ongoing investigation but it looks like it would not be something considered accidental, in the sense that no one was there. Because nobody should've been in there so it is wide open right now to what may have caused it," he described.
Chief Howell explained how situations like this are preventable but not uncommon. Cities across Central Arkansas like Hot Springs, Jacksonville, and Little Rock have been dealing with abandoned structures and the dangers they pose.
This is an issue that his department and city officials have continually been working to fix.
"If it's already a weak structure, and now it's on fire, and you start adding water to it, it just weakens the structure and now we have a collapsed building. You definitely don't want anyone to be inside," Chief Howell explained.
Fortunately, no one was hurt in Sunday's fire and that is something Chief Howell credits happening due to pre-fire safety measures they have in place.
"We have a system in place that identifies when we get a call to an abandoned structure and we share that information with our dispatch. We try to have as much information going into that situation, especially on something this big because it can go bad really quick," he added.
Now, the department is looking to the future and asks property owners to take on more responsibility.
"It's simply identifying who owns the property, getting them to be responsible for it, and then go to the next step of what they want to do with their property," Howell said.