Manufacturing, Manufacturing Plant

Spirit Lake, IA – Sprinkler system contained fire at motorcycle manufacturing plant

A fire broke out at the Polaris Industries Spirit Lake facility on April 10. Polaris owns Indian Motorcycle, and the facility is used to build the motorcycles. The fire started in near the paint station in the facility. The building’s sprinkler system took care of the flames near the ground.

While most of the fire was put out by the sprinkler system, the fire department did have to go in and extinguish some flames. The insulation in the ceiling of the building caught fire, according to RideApart, and that caused quite a lot of smoke. The fire department had to enlist the help of another fire department with the proper equipment to enter the building due to the level of smoke. It then had to ventilate the building to get the smoke out.

RideApart notes the Spirit Lake facility caught fire before. The previous fire happened in September of 2018. That fire, too, started in the paint area of the facility. After that fire, production was able to resume the same day. After this fire, production halted for one day, but it was set to resume on April 11.

Polaris Industries mentioned no delivery delays. I’m assuming everyone will get their Indian bike on time. With more than one fire stemming from the same area of the facility, maybe Indian should take a second look at its safety protocols.