In what seems like a terrible April Fools Day joke a pet food manufacturer in Pennsylvania experienced an industrial fire that just wouldn’t go out. On the evening of Tuesday March 31 workers at the Vita Line Products Plant in Hazle Township discovered a fire in a pet food material grinder.
By the time firefighters arrived on the scene the fire had spread to the air duct system, where it took firefighters over three hours to contain the blaze. The fire wasn’t done yet though, and several new fires were discovered by plant workers, causing firefighters to be called back to the plant.
One of these new fires was located within a silo that was storing 90 tons of powdered dog food. The smoldering dust inside the silo created new issues for the firefighters, and additional fire companies were dispatched to the area to assist. The fire inside the silo had caused the metal walls to heat up, and spraying water in the silo would create enough steam to cause the sides to split. A hose also could not be lowered in from the top to spray down the fire because there was concern about creating a dust cloud, and then a dust explosion.
However, despite these precautions the dust inside the silo did create enough of a cloud to combust, creating an explosion powerful enough to blow the roof off the silo. The solution to dealing with a silo full of smoldering pet food powder was to have firefighters and workers slowly empty the material out of the bottom of the silo into carts. These carts of burning material were then taken to an empty area behind the building and sprayed with water before being thrown into dumpsters.
Finally, after fire crews had been at the scene for 25 hours, the fire was completely contained Wednesday evening. Luckily there were no injuries caused by any of these fires or the explosion.
