A fire scare at the Walmart in Clayton turned out not to be a fire at all. Instead, the smoke that filled the store’s vision center and forced the evacuation of shoppers was from dust in a heating and air unit, firefighters say.
Rabun County E-911 dispatched firefighters to the store at 1455 Highway 441 South at 4:51 p.m. Monday, Oct. 23.
Rabun Dispatch advised that the Walmart Vision Center had begun filling up with smoke and the store was evacuating.
Firefighters arrived to find shoppers outside in the parking lot with no visible fire or smoke showing from the building. When they entered the vision center, they saw a “light haze of smoke” and smelled a possible electrical fire.
“Using thermal imaging and opening up the drop ceiling, the area directly above the center was found to have no heat or fire,” says Rabun County Assistant Fire Chief Justin Upchurch.
Dusty HVAC
Firefighters went to the roof to check the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) unit directly above the vision center. An HVAC maintenance worker met them there. He told them he had just replaced a fuse in the vision center unit that had been out of service for some time.
“It was smoke caused by the dust burning off of the heat strips in the HVAC unit. No fire, though,” says Upchurch.
Firefighters checked the unit with thermal imaging and notified management of the all-clear. The store reopened a short time later.
Upchurch credits store managers with conducting an orderly evacuation.
