Fire at Brand New Biomass Incinerator in Rothschild, Wisconsin

-April 11, 2014. Source: Wasau Dai­ly Herald

ROTHSCHILD — Fire­fight­ers extin­guished a blaze that ignit­ed in a dust col­lec­tor at the Dom­tar bio­mass pow­er plant ear­ly Fri­day morning.

Roth­schild Fire Depart­ment crews respond­ed to the plant just before 4:30 a.m., said Chief Marc Hill. When crews got to the plant, a fire was burn­ing inside the dust col­lec­tor and smoke was com­ing out of the struc­ture. No one was injured in the blaze, but it took fire crews about three hours to com­plete­ly put out the fire.

A lad­der truck from the SAFER fire sta­tion in West­on and its crew also respond­ed to the fire, Hill said.

The fire appar­ent­ly start­ed after some wood became caught in a giant shred­der called a hog, Hill said. The fric­tion caused by the mate­r­i­al and machin­ery cre­at­ed heat and sparks, which were pulled into the dust col­lec­tor through a col­lec­tion sys­tem. The fire start­ed quick­ly in the dust col­lec­tor, Hill said.