Storage building, contents destroyed by Thursday fire

"I had everything in that unit," said Sharon Burton as she sorted through her belongs, destroyed in the fire at C&G Mini Storage on Highway 34 in Cape Girardeau County. About 20 area firefighters responded to the 5:30 a.m. and fought the fire for about three hours before it was totally out. The fire consumed one of two of the business' buildings.

Burton said she's remodeling her home and her daughter is looking for a house. She said her daughter and grandchildren had also stored all of their belongings at the ministorage during the transition.

"All of our keepsakes were in there," she said. "Our valuable paperwork, my daughter's baby crib that was a keepsake, their hope chests?everything." Chief Jerry Aufdenberg, of Millersville Fire and Rescue, said the firefighters had a hard time getting into the building so they could fight the fire.

"We had to cut the doors off the storage units and cut the locks," he said.

"By the time we got here the springs on the doors were busted due to the

fire, so getting to it was difficult." Neighbors alerted Gary Dudley, owner of C&G Mini Storage, early in the morning that the building was on fire.

"This was really totally unexpected," said Dudley. "I'm in shock."

Dudley said he has insurance on the building, but since the stored items aren't his property, he was unable to ensure the contents of the units. "I had to put it in the contracts with my customers that they were responsible for having renter's insurance in case something like this happened," he said.

Dudley said he is concerned for his customers and hopes they are all insured. "People need to contact their insurance companies as soon as they rent and make sure they have renter's insurance." He also believed that his metal buildings would have been less susceptible to a fire. "I was sure in a metal building a fire would be more contained," he said.

Fire chiefs of both Millersville and Bollinger County Fire Departments said that while many people believe metal will contain a fire better than other building materials that isn't always the case.

"There were two forces working against us with this fire," said chief Jim Bollinger, of Bollinger County Volunteer Fire Department. "Convection and conduction."

Bollinger said the metal walls conducted the heat from the fire. Items in the units were stacked high against the walls and as the fire spread from unit to unit, the walls conducted the heat right through to the stacks on the other side, heating them to the point of catching fire.

"Just like a hot spoon on a frying pan," Bollinger said. "Metal walls are good conductors."

Aufdenberg said a six-inch gap between the walls of the units and the ceiling of the building enabled convection forces to spread the fire as the heat rose. No matter what is responsible for spreading the fire, the belongings stored in the units were lost to the flames.

Aufdenberg was unsure as to the cause of the fire.