Fire at Gwinnett Sonny’s BBQ restaurant caused by lightning strike, firefighters say

GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — Firefighters have extinguished a fire at a Sonny’s BBQ restaurant in Gwinnett County.

At 8:09 p.m. Tuesday, firefighters were called to 660 Duluth Highway for reports of a fire.

Crews arrived just five minutes later and the fire was fully extinguished at 8:31 p.m.

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When crews arrived they saw fire and smoke blowing through the roof of the restaurant.

According to Gwinnett County Fire, a lightning strike was to blame for the fire.

“We tried to knock down the bulk of the flames just using hand line streams. (We) ended up having to put up a couple of aerials because of the intense heat and also because we had concerns of the power lines that were really close to the building,” Capt. Ryan McGiboney, Public Information Officer with Gwinnett County Fire said.

According to McGiboney, the restaurant’s manager said a customer in the drive-thru window told her about smoke coming from the outside wall.

Soon after, restaurant staff saw smoke and flames on an inside wall near the ceiling.

The manager called 911 and began evacuating the building.

Sonny’s BBQ employee Samuel Shelton told Channel 2 Action News about the moments the restaurant caught fire.

“I was at the dumpster and as I come around to go back to the building, I heard a pop. And all of a sudden the lines that go from the pole into the building were just solid red. And then the next thing I know I saw it start smoking real bad. And I went to go in the door and it was so smoked up inside I couldn’t go inside. So I went to come around and when I did, it was on fire,” Shelton said.

Fire investigators are looking into the cause of the fire.

“This fire demonstrates the importance of managers working with their employees to practice fire escape drills in the workplace,” McGiboney said.

McGiboney said no one was injured.

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