Photos – Fire Burns Abandoned Hospital at Fort Chaffee

A huge fire has completely destroyed the old abandoned hospital complex at Fort Chaffee in Fort Smith AR. I recently had the opportunity to photograph the complex, and was planning on hosting some upcoming photography workshops at the location.

Fort Smith Fire Chief Richardson said early Thursday morning crews realized they would not be able to stop the fire engulfing the old Fort Chaffee hospital complex and they knew the fire would move westward.

Richardson said they are doing what they call a “burn back.” This means they started a fire on the edge of property they want to protect. They will let this fire burn and then put it out. They hope once the original fire meets the burned land it will have nowhere else to go.

The fire that burned over 80 acres and over 100 buildings in the historic Chaffee Hospital area of Fort Chaffee.

Here is a gallery of images from before the fire.

Abandoned Hospital Fort Chaffee – Images by Greg Disch

All the information in this post was believed to be accurate at the time it was published. Please be sure to double check with the location before relying on this information as everything changes over time, especially hours, prices, and whether the location is still open.

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Greg Disch is a freelance photographer located in Arkansas. Greg specializes in nature, scenic, wildlife, and other outdoor subjects in Arkansas and other areas of the country. Most of the images on this site are available for sale as prints, personal use, or rights managed stock photos.

Greg offers both classroom instruction and in the field hands on photographic workshops. Classroom sessions are normally held in Fort Smith Arkansas, but arrangements can be made to bring a class to your group.

All classes and workshops have small class sizes designed to provide an optimum student to instructor ratio, where you can get the personal attention, you need. Most classes and workshops are limited to a maximum of six participants and will be held with a minimum of only two.

If you are looking for a wonderful opportunity to get personal individual instruction, I do private workshops and classes at a location of your choice, whether doing a location photo shoot, coming to your home or business, traveling across the country on a road trip, or at my classroom. This is a fantastic way to learn digital workflow and be sure that your computer equipment is properly configured for optimum performance.