At approximately 5:00 Friday evening units from the Centre, Spring Creek, and Leesburg Fire Departments were dispatched to a reported structure fire at the intersection of East Main St and New York St in Centre.

Cherokee 911 informed fire units that the caller reported a bon fire had gotten out of control and spread to an abandoned chicken house and another structure located directly behind his residence.

Fire units quickly arrived on-scene and discovered the 2 structures on fire were just feet away from the residence.

Firefighters from all 3 departments immediately began doing everything they could to protect the residence and was able to keep the residence from catching on fire.

Centre Fire Chief Jeremy Lee credits the remarkable save to the quick response and extensive training that all 3 of the responding departments put in every year.

Chief Lee said the training we conduct in Cherokee County throughout the year for all 13 of our fire departments proved valuable and without trained firefighters knowing what to do in that situation we would have most certainly lost the residence.