Grand Island, Nebraska Fire Department crews were called out just before 10 pm Sunday night to a fire coming from the roof of the JBS meatpacking plant. Fire Chief Cory Schmidt says the fire was coming out of the rendering area when they arrived and it was a challenge for firefighters to gain access to the actual fire itself because it was in-between layers of metal and rubber.
“When our crews arrived, they did find some heavy fire and smoke coming from the roof in the rendering area,” Chief Schmidt explained. “During that time it was found that the fire was actually in-between the layers of the roof in some of the void space and involved hard material insulation, so it was very hard to get access to the actual fire.”
According to KSNB Local4 in Nebraska, Grand Island Fire Department Fire Marshal Fred Hotz explained that the fire was started by one of the heater devices in the rendering area of the plant that got too hot and started the roof on fire.
There is no word yet on how much damage occurred during the fire, but Nebraska Cattlemen Association Executive Vice President Pete McClymont said it could’ve been worse. “It did not do significant damage to the internal structure including electrical. It did do damage to a boiler and obviously, a packing plant needs water, needs hot water to operate,” McClymont said. “Every indication that we’ve got from our conversations with JBS is that it’s in good shape.”
Farmers were concerned about how long the plant would need to stay shut down because of the incident. For example, when the Tyson plant fire happened in Kansas two years ago, they ended up being shut down for five months. Luckily, the JBS plant was only shut down for one day and is now back up and running.
