Not a fire, but an interesting situation Thursday night for a central Indiana fire department. A livestock semi tractor-trailer hauling nearly 2,100 piglets from North Carolina to Iowa overturned along Interstate-465 in the Indianapolis area. Crews worked nearly 4 hours to save as many animals as possible by offloading into other trucks, which hauled surviving […]
FOND DU LAC (WITI) — The Fond du Lac Fire Department was called out to Mercury Marine on Monday afternoon, November 10th after a dust collector system caught fire. Fire officials say Plant 98 at Mercury Marine had to be evacuated after plant personnel reported a fire occurred in a dust collection system connected to […]
This past week, a firefighter was killed and 20 people were injured after an ammonia leak at a meat processing plant in Israel. The leak occurred at the Hod Hefer processing plant at Emek Hefer industrial zone north of Netanya. The incident forced the evacuation of over a hundred people from the surrounding area. Some […]
PIERCETON, Ind — An overnight fire badly damaged a feed mill in northern Indiana, although firefighters were able to largely keep flames from reaching its grain bins. Officials say a police officer on patrol spotted smoke coming about 2 a.m. Thursday from the Egg Innovations Feed Mill in the Kosciusko County town of Pierceton. Pierceton […]
When we stop to consider what constitutes an incident that’s “not just another fire,” I’m sure the first thing to come to mind for most of us isn’t the cause and origin. However, we sometimes need to be thinking outside the box when we review facilities, both in our investigation and our inspection modes. A […]
Spontaneous combustion fires are fairly common this time of year, especially when it comes to storage of grain or organic material that may contain excess moisture. Through an oxidation process involving moisture and air, bacterial fermentation can generate heat. If the material is very dense, packed tightly, or otherwise stored in a way that does […]
Last month, a massive fire destroyed a large former factory site that was undergoing an extensive renovation into apartments and retail space. In my travels over the past 10 years, I have gotten through many of these very old, multi-story factory buildings while they were still in use for manufacturing operations. The floors and structural […]