The Haleyville Fire Department responded quickly early Saturday morning, May 12, to a lumber fire inside a kiln at Great Southern Enterprises, located just off Highway 195, approximately 1/2 mile east of Lakeland Hospital. The kiln is a large metal building filled with lumber which utilizes an external gas furnace to heat the inside of the building to 220 degrees. Fans in the ceiling circulate the hot air. Basically, it’s a giant convection oven which over a period of days, removes moisture from the wood and opens the “pores” of the wood, a process to prepare the wood for later cutting and treatment with chemicals under pressure in order to preserve the wood. The lumber inside the building was removed with forklifts and sprayed down by firemen in order to get to the fire at the back side of the building and behind a huge stack of lumber. The Pebble Fire Department assisted HFD with a tanker.  The cause of the fire nor the exact extent of damages are known at this time. See more photos below.