Firefighters responded to a fire in a storage facility at the Highland Pellets plant Wednesday morning, containing the fire after about two hours. Four fire engines and two aerial fire trucks were dispatched to the plant at 8:41 a.m. and cleared the scene at 11:33 a.m., according to a Pine Bluff Fire and Emergency Services news release. No injuries were reported.
Battalion Fire Chief Harold Clark said it appeared that bags of wood pellets and sawdust spontaneously combusted in a silo-like storage facility called a “bag house.”
Eighteen firefighters and about 10 Highland Pellets employees collaborated in spraying water on the exterior of the facility for roughly two hours, Clark said, at which point the interior of the storage facility was cool enough to safely spray water inside. The bags of pellets inside were lost, Clark said, but he could not estimate how much material was destroyed.