When the first volunteer firefighters from Lewes arrived on Nassau Road near the bridge over the railroad tracks they found a large grain elevator barn and metal storage building totally engulfed in searing flames shooting above the trees.

Thomas Best and Sons Inc. owned the 6,000-square-foot building, which was used to store bales of straw, tires and farm equipment. The State Fire Marshal’s Office has put the loss at $300,000.

The barn also had 250 bushels of soybeans stored in it.

The fire was so hot it melted vinyl siding and a section of vinyl fence at a house for sale by Prudential-Gallo Realtors next to the barn. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Dozens of volunteers from six companies answered the alarm: Lewes, Rehoboth Beach, Milton, Indian River, Georgetown and Slaughter Beach.

It took volunteers about 45 minutes to get the flames towering nearly 100 feet into the air under control. Firefighters then removed tin and wood from the smoldering bales of straw.

Once that was completed, aerial trucks from Lewes and Rehoboth poured water on the remains of the old structure. Getting water to the location was a priority.

Firefighters also had to extinguish numerous spot fires along the railroad tracks and in a large field near the Nassau bridge as burning embers ignited dry grass and timber.

The northbound lane of Route 1 and Nassau Road were closed, causing traffic headaches for thousands of motorists Tuesday afternoon.

Lewes volunteers remained on the scene for several days following the fire as the straw continued to smolder.

A piece of history gone

Eddie Truitt, an employee of the Best family, watched as the fire blazed. He and several other people tried to get inside the barn when they first noticed the fire, but couldn’t get close because of the intense heat.

Truitt said the straw, which was from last year’s crop, was moved there about a week ago. He was in the building a few days prior to the fire to remove 17 of the 200 to 250 bales and noticed that some children had been playing in the building.

“There were little forts in there,” he said. “You could tell kids had been in there messing. Someone said they saw some kids running down the railroad tracks around the time the fire started.”

The building was an old, wood-sided grain elevator that, Linda Best said, was built in 1939 as the place where local farmers brought their grain to be cleaned and stored. She said elevators would take the grain to bins up to the roof, and the building contained old wooden pulleys, wide leather belts and equipment for cleaning grain. It had to be cleaned before storage to keep it from mildewing.

Alfred Best said his father built the grain elevator from old-growth pine taken from the family farm near Lincoln.

“There was no electricity to that building. That’s all I’m going to say,” said Best. “It was a shocker. That’s some more of our history gone.”

Anyone with information is asked to call the State Fire Marshal’s Office at 302-856-5600.