The Kar’s Nuts factory in Madison Heights had to close Sept. 15 when a fire broke out in the middle of the plant, but the fire was contained thanks to working sprinklers and a quick response by area fire departments.
Around 60 workers had to evacuate the facilities on 14 Mile Road, between John R and Dequindre roads. There were no injuries. The fire started around 7 p.m. in the roughly 300-square-foot room where the stainless steel containers are washed for product distribution. Kar’s Nuts ships a variety of snack mixes and nuts to distributors across the nation.
Four fire departments arrived at the scene, including the Madison Heights Fire Department. Firefighters from a fifth fire department, Birmingham, filled in for Madison firefighters at Station No. 1, ready to take calls for any extra emergencies.
At press time, the investigation was ongoing, but Madison Fire Chief Greg Lelito said he suspects it was an issue with the insulation around the piping that exhausts heat in the washing room.
“It then extended to the ceiling,” Lelito said. “The sprinkler system activated, which contained the fire. We then went in and put out the remainder of the fire with our fire hoses. But it was the sprinklers that kept it in the room of origin.”
While the fire didn’t spread far, the entire building was filled with heavy smoke, which made for limited visibility. The firefighters had to open every window and door, set up fans to circulate the air, and even break out the skylights on the roof in order to vent the smoke. The whole process took several hours. The entire building sustained significant damage from smoke and water. A mitigation company came in immediately afterward to begin work on restoring the facilities.
The plant employs about 200 workers. There were no injuries reported. The company has reported that all of its equipment is in working order, and at press time, production was expected to resume the following week. In the meantime, authorities continued to investigate the cause of the fire. Lelito said it’s fortunate that the sprinklers worked as they should.
“It was manageable, it was smooth, but it just shows you what sprinklers can do,” Lelito said. “City code typically requires that a building over 12,000 square feet is sprinklered. If that building didn’t have working sprinklers, that fire would’ve definitely spread past the room of origin.”
A Dutch Harbor seafood processing plant was severely damaged by an explosion Monday evening a public safety official said was likely caused by the ignition of fine fish-meal dust, though the incident remained under investigation Wednesday.
Mike Holman, director of Unalaska’s Department of Public Safety, said the blast — first reported by public radio station KUCB — occurred inside the Westward Seafoods plant on Captains Bay Road at about 6:45 p.m. Monday. Thirteen members of the department responded.
There were employees inside the building at the time of the explosion, but no injuries were reported. Westward Seafoods President Mark Johanson confirmed employees were in the facility, which he described as mostly “one large open space,” but were thankfully uninjured.
The blast likely occurred when an undetermined ignition source detonated dust from the production of fish meal, often used as feed for other fish, Holman said.
Johanson said the exact cause of the blast was still undetermined, though fish-meal dust was among the possible culprits. He declined to mention other possible causes.
“I don’t want to speculate at this point,” Johanson said. “We’ll do our investigation and obviously we’ll learn from it.”
Johanson said the fish-meal plant was closed for the time being, due to the extent of the damage.
“There’s quite a bit of damage inside the building — some of the pipes erupted, and one of the doors was blown off its hinges into a container,” Holman said.
Holman said no foul play is currently suspected in the blast, which is also being investigated by the state fire marshal. The plant’s sprinkler system extinguished the resulting fire before crews arrived but contributed to damage estimates well beyond the $100,000 first reported after the fire.
“It sounds like the sprinklers, when they went off, they dumped a lot of water on all the electrical equipment,” Holman said.
Johanson said one pollock season was wrapping up and the fish-meal plant isn’t needed in any current fishery openings. The company was optimistic the plant will be fully operational in time for another pollock season in January, he said.
Holman said he has seen two fish-meal dust explosions at Dutch Harbor plants during his 21 years with the department, but those blasts hadn’t been as costly as the one Monday.
“I don’t think it has caused as much damage as this one,” Holman said. “This was a little bit bigger.”
Three firefighters were treated for heat-related illness after fighting a fire July 6 at the Kellogg plant at 801 Sunshine Road in the Fairfax area of Kansas City, Kan.
Damage to the plant and its product were estimated at $1.5 million, the Kansas City, Kan., Fire Department spokesman said. The building was valued at $60 million before the fire.
There were no injuries to the plant workers when the fire broke out, according to the Fire Department spokesman. The plant, which makes Cheez-Its, was in production at the time of the fire.
The plant is currently closed while it is being cleaned up, according to the Fire Department, and it is estimated to be closed for several days to a week. Health officials will need to inspect it before it reopens.
The plant’s workers were in the process of being evacuated when firefighters arrived, the spokesman said.
The call came in around 9:01 p.m. Wednesday, with the first firefighters arriving about 3 minutes later.
The Fire Department spokesman said the fire started in one of the ovens at the plant that malfunctioned. The plant has four ovens, around 400 feet long, with a conveyor belt through them. The sprinkler system activated during the fire. The fire was near the end of one of the ovens, and the product was burning there, the spokesman said.
The Fire Department spokesman estimated that the firefighters faced temperatures of 120 to 130 degrees inside the building during the fire. It was also hot outdoors.
An explosion and fire at a Boone County candy factory is under investigation. Erlanger residents told WLWT they heard an explosion that shook their homes around 3 a.m. Friday.
“Shortly after the first unit got out of the station, they could actually see the fire from the station,” Point Pleasant Fire Department Asst. Chief Bill Martin said.
Flames could be seen shooting out of the three-alarm fire at the Perfetti Van Melle plant. The factory makes all of the Airheads candy for North America. Officials said the silo that handles sugar for candy making exploded.
“Anytime you’re dealing with any kind of dust or whatever, you have a chance of explosion – that’s always a hazard in that kind of operation – there’s all kinds of dust hazards – this just happens to involve a sugar product,” Martin said. Hundreds of employees made it out safely as dust in the form of sugar filled the air.
“They heard the explosion and took the necessary steps and made the call and got themselves out,” President and CEO PVM USA Mehmet Yuksek said. The fire was brought under control around 4:30 a.m.
“I think the sprinkler system did its job for the most part. The fire that we saw and that was extinguished with the ladder pipe that we had up. The involvement inside the building was actually very limited by the sprinkler system,” said Point Pleasant Assistant Chief Bill Martin.
Meanwhile, employees were told to stay home on Friday. Parfetti Van Melle President Mehmet Yuksek arrived on the scene early Friday morning.
“We’re actually trying to put the call on everyone, including the office and the first shift not to come because we won’t be operational. Until we know exactly what the damages are and what we need to do, we won’t be making any production,” said Yuksek.
Investigators are still trying to determine a cause.
Reporting on lives and property saved by fire sprinklers
