State Farm Insurance investigating North Myrtle Beach wildfire evacuation

News 13 has learned a fire investigator has been hired by State Farm Insurance to investigate all of the video tapes and North Myrtle Beach Public Safety’s communications during the wildfire that jumped into Barefoot on April 23, 2009.

The fire investigator is John Stewart.

Stewart works for Jack Ward Fire Consultants, a Florida based group that investigates the causes of fires and offers expert testimony on how fire responses are handled.

Barefoot residents who scrutinized the city’s response are now joined by Jack Ward Fire Consultants, and several other agencies.

A State Farm spokesperson says the company is handling claims of 29 total home losses from the wildfire.

Stewart says an attorney with State Farm hired him to investigate the wildfire.

Stewart was a senior agent in the arson unit for SLED. He was once named inspector of the year by the state of South Carolina.

While Stewart won’t say why he is investigating the fire, he did tell News 13 that the City of North Myrtle Beach has been stonewalling him from obtaining important video showing how the evacuation was handled.

Barefoot resident Mike Van Ostrom, who along with a few other residents has been looking into emergency response to the fire, says Stewart’s investigation solidifies his stance that the city’s response to the fire was inadequate.

“Information has been with held right from the beginning and we felt if they had given us the information right from the beginning, we could’ve made our own determination as to what happened that night. Now, other people are also being stonewalled like we were and that just goes to prove that they’re hiding something or they just don’t want to give us the information. For what ever reason.“

In addition to State Farm hiring a fire investigator, Florence lawyer David Banner tells News 13 he is also looking closely at how the response was handled.

In a phone call conversation this afternoon, Banner would not say who hired him to investigate the response nor why he is investigating it.

News 13 has also contacted the Insurance Services Offices out of New Jersey to find out what the investigation means to people in Barefoot and if the investigation could impact people across the state.

The office was closed on Sunday and we were unable to get a hold of anyone with ISO.

News 13 will continue to seek these answers in the coming days.