Firefighters quickly doused a fire in a mill at Lingentics, the maker of New England Wood Pellets, in Jaffrey Sunday afternoon.
“It took us about 45 minutes to get it under control,” Jaffrey Fire Chief David Chamberlain said.
Chamberlain said the fire appears to have been caused by a mechanical malfunction inside a piece of machinery.
Firefighters responded around 1:21 p.m. Sunday afternoon to 141 Old Sharon Road in Jaffrey for a report of a structure fire inside mill number 1, he said. “Mill number one was on fire.”
The first arriving firefighter found smoke inside the building.
“Due to the history here, and the kind of product, the sawdust and stuff like that, we increased it to a second alarm to bring in additional help,” Chamberlain said. “It was determined there was some type of fire around the motor and belt area of the machine so we disabled the machine and extinguished the fire.”
Firefighters then checked to see if the fire had spread into other parts of the building or machinery, he said. Fires at the wood pellet mill in the past have included the fire spreading through the manufacturing process, he said. “The fire starts in the mill and it’s carried through the other areas of the process.”
At least three major fires have occurred at the wood pellet manufacturer in its history. The last one that occurred about five years ago led to stringent regulations for the facility.
“After the last major fire here they had to do significant upgrades. … Installation of sprinkler systems and other safety guards.”
However, none of these new safeguards were activated by the fire, which was discovered by employees who didn’t report the fire for about 15 minutes, Chamberlain said.
“Employees were in the break room and heard some type of loud noise and went out and found the fire,” he said.
The employees, however, delayed in reporting the fire and first tried to extinguish the fire themselves.
“They should have pulled the fire alarm, the manual fire alarm when they first saw the fire,” Chamberlain said. “No matter if it is at your house or a manufacturing facility like this, if there is fire or if there is smoke notify the fire department immediately.”
Chamberlain said the fire alarms will be assessed as well as the employee procedures for reporting fires and keeping the mill clean of sawdust.
“The biggest thing is going to be the employees notifying us at the fire sight of fire and housekeeping is going to be another issue that they are going to have to assess,” Chamberlain said.