T-R Photo By SAM STUVE On the evening of July 3, Casey’s General Store on S 12th Ave., had to close down because of an accidental fire. The store is expected to open in the next week or so.

The Casey’s on 12th Avenue should be open in the next week or so after sustaining fire damage.

The corporate office is addressing damages from the fire, which broke out on July 3. The fire, which didn’t injure anyone, is believed to be accidental and started in the store’s laundry room.

“According to the report, our firemen found there was charred linen inside the dryer,” Marshalltown Fire Marshal Josh Warnell said.

The damage of the fire was minimal according to Warnell. Warnell offered a possible explanation for how the fire may have started in the laundry room.

“What can happen is that if a rag or towel is not washed with natural hot water, it doesn’t completely get the grease and oil residue out of that linen, and if it’s washed in coal, they can almost set it in like it doesn’t remove it. So when they throw it into a dryer, it can actually heat that linen up to the point where those oily rags are going to combust.” Warnell said. “Oily rags, after you take them out of the dryer, and they’re just kind of piled up in a kind of a large pile, not neatly stacked and folded, they can retain that heat and actually self combust on their own to create a fire.”

He said the fire department has had some similar fires this year.

“So according to what the officer report says, and the findings of what they had, that seems to be what happened there,” Warnell said.

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Contact Sam Stuve at 641-753-6611 or at sstuve@timesrepublican.com.