A small fire created heavy black smoke at Alcoa’s facility at 101 RTI Way, but the sprinkler system extinguished the fire, employees were evacuated from the building and no one was injured, according to Kenny Shumate, division chief of operations for Henry County Public Safety.
He said the cause of the fire had not been determined and probably will be investigated by engineers. Something apparently caused hydraulic fluid to be released unto a huge press, he said. He did not have a damage estimate. The fire was reported shortly before 11:30 a.m., Shumate said. In all, 18 or 19 people from Henry County Public Safety, Martinsville Fire Department, Henry County Sheriff’s Department, Collinsville and Bassett fire departments, Henry County Public Service Authority and Appalachian Power responded.
A company spokesman said in an email: “We can confirm there was a fire at an Alcoa facility in Martinsville, VA on Tuesday. There were no injuries and the facility sprinkler system extinguished the fire. The impact to production is expected to be minimal, with no impact to customers.”
A fire that started in storage racks damaged the north side of the Flat Rock Auto Assembly Plant Tuesday night, causing hundreds of workers to be evacuated from the building. Firefighters from Flat Rock, Rockwood and Woodhaven responded to the plant at Gibraltar Rd. and I-75 about 7 p.m. Tuesday. Firefighters could see smoke billowing from the plant at the Flat Rock station, Chief William Vack said.
“When we arrived, it was going pretty good, and you could see smoke about 100 feet in the air,” Chief Vack said afterward. “Once we got our water supplies established, we had it knocked down in about a half hour.”
Where the fire started was only about 100 feet from Vreeland Rd., he said. Heat from the fire penetrated an exterior wall on the north side of the plant, activating a single sprinkler in a newer section of the building, he said. The sprinkler helped quell any fire inside.
“Most of the plant was unaffected,” Chief Vack said. “The fire was near the truck docks. … There was no smoke in the building.”
He said it was standard procedure to evacuate the plant when a fire alarm is activated. The amount of damage was unknown but was not believed to be extensive. Firefighters were on the scene for about two hours.
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.
About 240 workers were evacuated from the General Motors Spring Hill Manufacturing Facility on Wednesday after a fire broke out on the third floor of one of its production buildings.
Six Columbia and four Spring Hill fire trucks responded to the scene, Columbia Assistant Fire Chief Tim Holt said.
Firefighters received the call at 3:03 p.m. and rushed to GM’s body shop off Nashville Highway and Saturn Parkway.
Crews found an air-handling machine on fire, spreading smoke in the building, Holt said.
“We got it knocked down quickly, within 15 minutes,” Holt said. “The sprinkler system helped keep the fire in place.”
One GM security guard on the scene was treated for smoke inhalation, he said.
The incident likely was caused by welding sparks, which caught cardboard on fire, Holt said.
Columbia’s fire department had 16 firefighters on scene.
GM spokesman Tom W. Wickham said the body shop was closed for the rest of Wednesday evening and will reopen Thursday morning.
“We had to clean up a lot of water and debris,” Wickham said.
A similar incident brought fire crews to the GM plant just after midnight May 20. No one was hurt then, but the building was evacuated.
Reporting on lives and property saved by fire sprinklers
