Manufacturing, Manufacturing Plant Pine Grove, PA – Machine fire at textiles plant controlled by sprinkler system August 30, 2016 viking210 Firefighters raced to Guilford Performance Textiles on Saturday afternoon when a machine in the production area caught fire. “An oil separator on the side of a machine apparently broke a coupler and created a fire. For the most part, the sprinkler system did take over but, we had fire in the machine,” Pine Grove Fire Chief Dave A. Sattizahn said. The firm makes and dyes fabric for products ranging from military helmet liners to graduation gowns. The fire was reported to Schuylkill County Communications Center, Pottsville, at 3:11 p.m. Saturday. Area firefighters were dispatched to the factory at 1 Penn Dye St. “It came in as an automatic fire alarm and it was upgraded to a working fire,” Sattizahn said. The fire occurred on the east side of the building. “It was in the last part of their processing area. The plant was on shut down. There was no production going on at the time. But there was a maintenance crew on,” Sattizahn said. Responders included firefighters from Pine Grove, Ravine, Schuylkill Haven and Friedensburg. “It was a machine that’s used for plant production. It’s a machine they run the material through. I think it dries the material. It has a big, hydraulic oil tank on it. And, apparently, one of the couplers broke,” Sattizahn said. “So when the coupler broke, it caught on fire right away. The fire got up above the machine and the sprinkler system kicked in. The sprinkler system did it’s job. But when we got there we got the rest of it out.” Sattizahn said when he entered the building, he saw the machine was on fire. The firefighters managed to keep the fire contained to the building on the far east end of the complex. One of the issues firefighters faced was smoke. “That big building filled up with smoke pretty quick,” Sattizahn said. And the firefighters used draw fans and the operation’s exhaust system to deal with it. The machine sustained fire damage and the building sustained smoke and water damage, the fire chief said. He wasn’t sure exactly why the coupling broke, but said “that oil stays hot all the time in that unit.” And he believe the fire was accidental. The fire was out by 4:30 p.m., he said.
