By admin 
More than 250 workers in South Carolina will lose their jobs this week after a raging fire demolished their workplace — a mattress factory.
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On Aug. 21, Healthcare SC filed a WARN notice, alerting the state that 254 people will be laid off Friday, Aug. 28. The layoffs follow a fire on Aug. 16 that destroyed a mattress factory in Winnsboro that is owned by Healthcare SC.
In an effort to aid dislocated workers, a public job fair is scheduled for Sept. 2, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Boykin Recreation Center, located at 1851 US Hwy 321 Bypass North in Winnsboro, according to a news release.
The South Carolina Department of Employment Workforce, SC Works and American Job Center are hosting the fair, the release said.
A 48-hour-blaze
The Winnsboro factory, which produce MLily mattresses, burned for 48 hours after a fire brought out as mattress foam came into contact with a conveyor within the factory, The State previously reported.
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More than 270 firefighters, including some 200 from out of county, fought the fire, according to Gene Stephens, a public information officer for Fairfield County.
As a result of the long-lasting inferno, water sources and farmland was polluted for miles around, making it impossible for farmers to sell their spoiled crops, according to a lawsuit filed in state court by Amy Bates — a property owner and farmer in Fairfield County, who owns one acre of land about 10 miles from the factory, the suit said.
The pollution fell on her crops and forced her to cancel her plans to send them to prominent Columbia restaurants such as The War Mouth, Terra, Bourbon, Motor Supply Company, Lula Drake Wine Parlor, Spotted Salamander, and di Vino Rosso, the lawsuit said.
The South Carolina Department of Environmental Services has begun working with property owners in the area to help mitigate pollution runoffs, and “Environmental Clean-up” signage has been posted in areas where remediation efforts are ongoing,” the agency said.
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