All employees in the Pak-Sher facility Sunday night were out of the building in less than one minute after fire alarms alerted the 30 to 35 people inside to the danger.
“I actually do two fire drills a year because you never know what’s going to happen, just like what happened to us Sunday night, and the training paid off,” Pak-Sher Safety Coordinator Jeremy Spier said Tuesday morning, adding the company’s emergency response team was able to get everyone out of the building “promptly and safely.”
The fire, the cause of which is still under investigation, began in the building’s sample room between 8 and 9 p.m. Sunday night. Kilgore Fire Department responded, along with mutual aid from Sabine Volunteer Fire Department and Longview Fire Department, Assistant Kilgore Fire Chief Mike Simmons said.
“Heavy smoke was coming out of the west side of the building,” he said. By the time the fire crews responded, though, Pak-Sher President Troy Fischer said, the sprinkler systems had extinguished the majority of the fire.
The employees returned to work in the facility within two hours of the fire once they were cleared to do so by KFD, Fischer said. “We’re fully operational,” Spier said. “We’re good to go.”
With the sprinkler system and the firewalls, he said, the fire was contained to the sample room and did not affect the connected training room. “We do have some minor fire damage, some smoke and water damage as well,” Fischer wrote in an e-mail Monday night.
Even with 18 years of experience as a firefighter, Spier said, there is no way to truly prepare for an emergency, such as a fire.
“You can bring safety measures. You can do anything you can imagine and you think is 100 percent safe, but then again, in the safety business, it’s always ‘what if?’,” Spier said. “We were prepared as much as we can be prepared – our sprinkler systems were there, fire alarm went off. Everything worked like it was supposed to, so we were prepared that way. Absolutely. Everybody knew their emergency exits. Everybody got out like they were supposed to and in a very timely manner.”
Fischer explained the sample room is in a remote area of the building away from production space.
Although it has not been decided, Spier expected another room to be set up as the sample room because the current room will require more work, including new ceiling tiles, sheetrock and insulation.
“Thankfully it was not a bigger situation, and thankfully no employees were in any imminent danger,” Fischer said.
Kilgore Economic Development Corporation Executive Director Amanda Nobles said she and others at Kilgore EDC were grateful for the fire departments’ work.
“Pak-Sher is a valuable and primary employer in our community, and we hope that everything works out for them, and we’re glad there certainly was not more loss of property and absolutely no loss of life or injuries,” she said.
An “over-pressurization” event led to a fire Saturday that damaged equipment and a section of the Pfizer Inc. manufacturing complex on Portage Road, a Pfizer spokeswoman said Tuesday. Kim Bencker, head of communications for Pfizer Global Supply, previously said no one was injured in the incident, but she could not provide more details.
The incident occurred about 10 a.m. Saturday in Building No. 335. “There appears to have been an over-pressurization event and a fire. The fire was immediately extinguished by the sprinkler in the area,” Bencker said Tuesday in an email response to questions.
The fire damaged equipment and caused “limited building damage,” she said. “No employees were in the area of the building where the incident occurred.” “Most of the building is operating normally, and Pfizer is investigating the cause of the incident,” Bencker said.
Kameron Jordan, Kalamazoo district coordinator for the Department of Environmental Quality, said a small fire in Building No. 335 was reported to the DEQ.
“Because of the possibility that water used to suppress the fire could have resulted in runoff of manganese and/or acetone compounds, the retention pond was tested,” he said. “Neither substance was found to be in excess of background levels of those compounds. A final report will be prepared, and no further response is required.”
Tanya Baker, of the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, said the incident was not reported to the state, but such reporting is not required in incidents when no employees were injured.
Reporting on lives and property saved by fire sprinklers
