Sheriff’s office investigating fire at Sanders Bros.
By TARA JENNINGS Ledger Staff Writer tara@gaffneyledger.com

The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a suspicious fire Monday at Sanders Bros. that appears to have started when someone used a cutting torch to burglarize the vending machines in the canteen of the fabrication shop.

The Gaffney Fire Department responded minutes after building maintenance supervisor Ray Nichols noticed smoke in the canteen area at 5:10 a.m.

When Gaffney fire investigator Nathan Ellis responded to the business at 1709 Old Georgia Hwy., he noticed a cutting torch with two compressed gas cylinders and hoses located near the center of the canteen, according to an investigative report at the Gaffney Fire Department. He also found a leather glove, a pair of pliers, a hammer and a crowbar on the floor near a bill changing machine.

Three vending machines appeared to have been broken into and a fourth had been burned. A coffee vending machine on the opposite side of the canteen, which does not take money and dispenses coffee for free, was not vandalized.

“It is theorized that the cutting torch, which was used to vandalize other vending machines in the same room, became ineffective in cutting the metal portions of the machine once its oxygen supply was depleted,” Ellis explained in his report. “The cutting torch, burning only acetylene, would not burn hot enough to cut the metal but was used instead to melt the plastic “drink selection” buttons. ... It is believed that the plastic did not burn hot enough to sustain burning and had, in fact, burned itself out prior to being discovered by the employee and fire department.”

Sheriff’s Deputy Detective Tracy Fowler is in charge of the investigation.