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KENT JACKSON/Staff Photo Employees wait outside Vita-Line Products after fire apparatus responded to the pet food factory at 1111 N. Park Drive in Humboldt Industrial Park.
KENT JACKSON / STAFF PHOTO A fire engine parks outside the Vita-Line Products plant in Humboldt Industrial Park. Fire apparatus started responding to the plant on Wednesday morning while employees waited outside.
HAZLE TWP. — Firefighters extinguished burning grain in two hours Wednesday at a pet food plant in Humboldt Industrial Park where they previously spent 25 hours fighting a fire in 2015.
Since the first fire at Vita-Line Products on Dec. 26, 2015, the company has taken precautions that prevented another marathon for firefighters, Scott Kostician, township fire chief, said.
Three years ago firefighters worked around the clock after fire spread to a silo where sweet potatoes piled up 42 feet, which made flames difficult to kill.
Now as a precaution, workers packed the silo no higher than 15 feet with grain, while firefighters from six fire companies stopped flames from reaching silos, which they emptied as a further precaution.
The fire began in a grinder that ductwork carries to the silos, which are steel tanks 55 feet tall within a building.
“They’re not your farm silos,” Kostician said.
Firefighters opened the grinder and doused the fire with water, but they also inspected a bag house and climbed on a roof to check a dust collector.
Kostician estimated 41 firefighters responded from the township, Harwood, Freeland, Hazleton, McAdoo and Sheppton-Oneida companies.
While firefighters worked, some Vita-Line employees waited outside the plant at 1111 N. Park Drive. Other employees stayed within a section of the factory protected by a firewall from the grinder, Kostician said.
As firefighters left about 1:35 p.m., employees began cleaning up the plant, which Kostician said smelled terrible.
Firefighters also faced a cleanup.
Wet grain from the plant can spread bacteria when it gets inside firefighters’ boots, so firefighters hosed off one another as they exited, and Kostician said they would wash all their gear again when they returned to their stations.
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.com; 570-501-3587
