Fire damages Union County Jail

The Union County Jail was forced to evacuate all of their inmates to the recreation yard for a brief period Wednesday night after an electrical fire erupted in the kitchen.

Chief Deputy Charlie Phillips updated the Union County Quorum Court during their monthly meeting Thursday on the fire that took place the previous evening.

At around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, a fire spread throughout the ceiling of the facility near the kitchen, Phillips said. The jail currently has 205 inmates and no injuries were reported.

“We don’t know exactly where it started yet, but it did quite a bit of damage,” Phillips said. “The entire facility was evacuated. We evacuated the pods (where inmates are held) and placed them in an open area.”

The area he referred to is the recreational yard, which is “fresh air open.” Once the smoke was cleared, everyone was returned to their pods.

Phillips said the electrical fire began above an old walk-in cooler room that was being used for storage.

The heat from the fire melted the metal walls of the former cooler room and rendered the facility’s kitchen in the neighboring room inoperable.

Phillips said the entire kitchen is currently shut down and the Salvation Army fed the inmates breakfast Thursday morning. Tiger Correctional Services is providing the jail with three days of food, giving the kitchen staff time to deal with the damage.

The health department visited the jail Wednesday night after the fire and told officials that they needed to separate the portion of the kitchen affected by the fire from the rest of the area before they could resume use in the kitchen.

“We’re trying to get it all cleaned up and separated where we can get our kitchen back up and running so we can feed our inmates,” Phillips said.

The next step, he said, is to get the insurance company on site to assess the damages. On Thursday, there was no estimate yet available of the cost of the damage.

“The El Dorado Fire Department did a great job getting over there and containing the fire to just our kitchen,” Phillips said. “It was about to go through another wall, which would have went into one of our inmate’s pods.”

Phillips added that he appreciated the help from the El Dorado Police Department and state police with getting the inmates moved.

Terrance Armstard/News-Times Investigate: Union County Chief Deputy Charlie Phillips inspects the ceiling of the kitchen at the Union County Criminal Justice Facility after a fire damaged several areas inside the building. Wednesday.

Terrance Armstard/News-Times Fire: A fire at the Union County Criminal Justice Facility damaged several areas inside the building Wednesday night.