The blaze erupted about 8:40 p.m. at the old Carter's Lumberyard on South Grace Street, just down the street from town hall in downtown Rocky Mount. Carter's was an extremely popular business in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Very little is left of the huge warehouse, which was used for storage in recent years. Tuesday's drizzle fell on blackened, crumpled tin, charred wood and a burned-out car at the site of the fire.
When the lumberyard was in operation, trucks drove inside the destroyed warehouse through large doors to pick up lumber. Longtime residents remembered the warehouse as part of a landmark business.
Investigators scoured the ashes for clues Tuesday morning, but they have not determined the cause of the fire.
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