Police investigating fire started in Tifton Walmart
ALBANY, Ga. (WALB) - Tifton police are investigating a fire that broke out in the tissue aisle in Walmart on US-82 in Tifton.
We got word Sunday night after shoppers spotted the blaze in the tissue paper aisle. WALB News 10′s Nathalie Moreau spoke to one of those customers and tells us more about their experience.
The next day, Super Walmart was back open for business after the previous day’s unforeseen events. The aisle where the incident happened was cleaned up and back to normal.
Megan Ogden, a customer, explained her experience as she visited the store to buy groceries for her and her son.
”Yeah, it started out small at first, and then there were people like going over there and knocking onto the concrete floor so it doesn’t spread,” said Ogden.
According to Ogden, the customers were the ones attending to the scene before Walmart employees arrived.
“And it took the Walmart employees and good like three minutes to get over there and somebody, like some random customer, found a fire extinguisher and was able to put It out,” said Ogden.
The store ended up closing its doors afterward.
“I was at the checkout and that’s when they started evacuating everyone and so, they said it would be about 30, 45 minutes. And first, you know, we could go back in after they get all the smoke cleared out and cover up all the products cause they have to dispose of all the products due to the smoke contamination and we sat there for two hours in the parking lot hoping to go back in to purchase our stuff and we never got to go back in,” said Ogden.
She says she heard the fire was a Tik Tok trend.
“It’s probably not a Tik Tok trend I want to see in person, especially since I had my son with me so it was definitely not a good time,” said Ogden.
Ogden feels these types of incidents affect shoppers more than we know and isn’t for these types of social media trends.
“Definitely just don’t start fires in Walmart. Do it outside, because people are trying to shop and one girl pulled up to get formula for her baby and he needed special formula and she couldn’t go in there and get it and it’s just restricting the people that need their necessities,” said Ogden.
Police said they are still investigating how the fire started.
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