|
|
|
The Carbolytic Materials Company plant located in the industrial park on the east edge of Maryville will remain closed for the next several days as employees continue clean-up and maintenance in the wake of fire outside the main plant that broke out around 9 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 29.
CMC Chief Executive Officer Ray Riek said Friday the fire started after an apparently frozen pipe began to thaw out, causing it to expand and burst.
Riek said the resulting oil spill was contained behind a concrete dike surrounding a cluster of storage tanks where the break occurred. Somehow, the spilled oil was ignited, causing a large fire.
Maryville firefighters were dispatched to the scene, Riek said, and extinguished the flames using fire-suppressing foam. Riek said the spill was contained by the dike, and that no oil escape into the environment. There were no injuries.
Though the blaze occurred outside the plant, Riek said damage to exterior facilities forced a shutdown of CMC operations expected to last a total of about two weeks. Much of the oil, which the company extracts from shredded automotive tires and sells, will be recovered and re-processed, he said.
Riek said an internal investigation into the incident is continuing, and that he does not yet know what caused the spilled oil, which is similar to home-heating oil, to ignite.
"When something like this happens you concentrate first on getting your business back together and then figuring out how to make sure it doesn't happen again," Riek said.
CMC has a workforce of just under 30 employees, several of whom, Riek said, have remained on the job working to bring the plant back on line.
The fire is the fourth in a series of accidents at CMC over the past year and a half, including two fires inside the plant building and a large oil spill in late February, 2011. The spill filled nearby drainage ditches with approximately 6,000 gallons of oil, some of which flowed into One Hundred and Two River.
CMC began plant operations in August 2009 after opening a research and development arm at Northwest Missouri State University's Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Fires briefly halted production on Dec. 10 and Jan. 8, with Riek saying that both blazes were caused by a "leak issue" associated with newly developed technology involving equipment that generates extremely high temperatures.
No one was seriously hurt in either fire, but two workers were "checked out" for possible smoke inhalation following the January incident, including an employee that was taken by helicopter to Heartland Regional Medical Center in St. Joseph.
The Carbolytic Materials Company plant located in the industrial park on the east edge of Maryville will remain closed for the next several days as employees continue clean-up and maintenance in the wake of fire outside the main plant that broke out around 9 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 29.
CMC Chief Executive Officer Ray Riek said Friday the fire started after an apparently frozen pipe began to thaw out, causing it to expand and burst.
Riek said the resulting oil spill was contained behind a concrete dike surrounding a cluster of storage tanks where the break occurred. Somehow, the spilled oil was ignited, causing a large fire.
Maryville firefighters were dispatched to the scene, Riek said, and extinguished the flames using fire-suppressing foam. Riek said the spill was contained by the dike, and that no oil escape into the environment. There were no injuries.
Though the blaze occurred outside the plant, Riek said damage to exterior facilities forced a shutdown of CMC operations expected to last a total of about two weeks. Much of the oil, which the company extracts from shredded automotive tires and sells, will be recovered and re-processed, he said.
Riek said an internal investigation into the incident is continuing, and that he does not yet know what caused the spilled oil, which is similar to home-heating oil, to ignite.
"When something like this happens you concentrate first on getting your business back together and then figuring out how to make sure it doesn't happen again," Riek said.
CMC has a workforce of just under 30 employees, several of whom, Riek said, have remained on the job working to bring the plant back on line.
The fire is the fourth in a series of accidents at CMC over the past year and a half, including two fires inside the plant building and a large oil spill in late February, 2011. The spill filled nearby drainage ditches with approximately 6,000 gallons of oil, some of which flowed into One Hundred and Two River.
CMC began plant operations in August 2009 after opening a research and development arm at Northwest Missouri State University's Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Fires briefly halted production on Dec. 10 and Jan. 8, with Riek saying that both blazes were caused by a "leak issue" associated with newly developed technology involving equipment that generates extremely high temperatures.
No one was seriously hurt in either fire, but two workers were "checked out" for possible smoke inhalation following the January incident, including an employee that was taken by helicopter to Heartland Regional Medical Center in St. Joseph.
