‘Fire! Fire!’ Lawsuit details timeline of when SouthPark blaze started, rescue efforts
Nearly a year after the deadly construction site fire in SouthPark, a lawsuit filed by the families of two workers killed provides a minute-by-minute glimpse of firefighters’ efforts to fight the blaze and rescue workers.
With the help of a crane operator stuck in his cabin 210 feet above ground, rescuers saved 15 people from the May 2023 fire. But attempts by him and firefighters to rescue Demonte Sherrill and Reuben Holmes, who were trapped on the sixth floor, failed.
A 68-page complaint describes how the five-alarm fire started, when it was reported and how close rescuers got to the Sherrill and Holmes. It draws this timeline:
7:30 a.m. A worker for Kentucky Overhead Door starts a generator in the parking deck at the 7700 block of Liberty Row Drive. He walks upstairs to spray foam insulation. At some point, the spray foam gun stops working.
8:55 a.m. After walking downstairs to the parking garage, the man sees flames coming from the back of a trailer containing a generator and spray foam chemicals. He enters the trailer’s side door, grabs a fire extinguisher and tries to put out the fire. But the fire continues to spread. The worker yells for help, then runs to tell a supervisor.
9:02 a.m. After trying to put out the fire, an employee for Mill Creek Residential, the site’s developer, calls 911.
9:03 a.m. Mill Creek employees run up and down the stairway, yelling “Fire! Fire!” trying to warn workers.
9:07 a.m. The first Charlotte firefighters arrive on scene. Smoke from the burning trailer is escaping from the parking garage.
9:09 a.m. A Mill Creek superintendent tells Capt. B.W. Benson of the Charlotte Fire Department that the building’s standpipe, a water source for firefighters, was connected. (North Carolina fire safety codes require that a standpipe be installed for construction sites the size of the SouthPark site.)
9:11 a.m. Firefighters try to connect to what they thought was a standpipe.
9:13 a.m. Firefighters on the first floor say they can feel a fire’s heat but don’t see flames.
9:14 a.m. Firefighters learn that workers are trapped on the fourth and sixth floors. The fourth floor has good visibility, they say. They climb to the sixth floor, where they hear someone yelling “help.”
9:16 a.m. Firefighters inside the building realize that no standpipe exists.
9:18 a.m. Demonte Sherrill, trapped on the sixth floor with Reuben Holmes, begins to plead for help on Facebook Live.
9:19 a.m. The construction crane operator, who ultimately helped rescue more than a dozen workers, unsuccessfully tries to save Sherrill and Holmes by lowering the crane basket.
9:20 a.m. Firefighters enter the construction site’s only stairway to attempt to rescue Sherrill and Holmes.
9:22 a.m. Firefighters reach the sixth floor, where smoke hangs at eye-level. The crew begins crawling. Just as an order that they evacuate is issued, they hear a cry for help. They reach a hallway where a captain bangs the floor and yells for the workers. The trapped men bang on floors and walls in response. The captain says the workers sound close, but firefighters could not find them. The crew moves to evacuate but gets lost due to low visibility. They call a mayday but eventually find the one set of stairs on their own.
9:26 a.m. Sherrill ends his Facebook Live broadcast. Keith Suggs, owner of Prestige Windows and Doors, which employed Sherrill and Holmes, calls and speaks with Sherrill. He tells Suggsthat they are trapped.
9:37 a.m. iFirefighters who tried to save Sherrill and Holmes exit the burning building, as ordered. The five-alarm blaze continues to spread.
