(Lake Park)– Lake Park Fire Chief Brandon Ehret says a rooftop ventilation fan was the likely cause of a fire this (Wednesday) morning at Northern Iowa Diecast in Lake Park. Ehret says upon arriving they found smoke coming from one of five fan units in the roof. But he says given the nature of the manufacturing that takes place there, they had to take some special precautions first…
“It’s a very unique situation out there. You cannot just go in and start spraying water everywhere because they have their melting kettles for their diecasting. You cannot get water in them otherwise some very bad things can happen. So we assessed the situation, we got set up, conferred with the maintenance employees of the diecast plant, we sent a crew in to get the lids closed on the kettles. Once we closed the kettle lids we were able to go in with hand lines and then basically knocked the fire down. The fire was contained to the peak roof of the main building, the main production floor area, and the vents. We were able to get the fire knocked down from inside. We had crews from Milford up on the roof with the use of Spirit Lake’s areal truck. They cut the tin out from around the roof vents, collapsed a few of them and made sure there was no fire extension. So basically our initial fire attack put the fire out and then we were just there maintaining, making sure there were no hot spots.”
The Milford and Spirit Lake Fire Departments assisted and an ambulance stood by on the scene as a precaution along with Dickinson County Emergency Management.
Firefighters were on the scene several hours.
About 100 people work at Northern Iowa Diecast.
