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October 1, 2011

Light fixtures focus of fire investigation

Rachel Brown rachelbrown@daltoncitizen.com

Dalton Fire Department investigators think they may know what started a fire at Columbia Recycling earlier this week.

A section of one of the buildings at 1001 Chattanooga Ave. caught fire early Tuesday morning. The investigation is ongoing, but officials believe the fire was accidental.

“Right now our investigation is focused on a lighting fixture that was supposed to be sealed for a Class 1 Division 1 location,” said Chief Bruce Satterfield. “Lint and fly inside the building are also expected to be a factor in the cause.”

Class 1 Division 1 refers to a fire code that’s more stringent for industrial areas with lots of flammable material than, for example, someone’s private living room. “Fly” refers to the tiny particles of ground-up carpet produced through the company’s recycling process.

“You don’t want that stuff piling up on a regular light bulb,” Satterfield said. “Typically, those lights are sealed. Actually, there are several lights that we’re looking at, but that is sort of the focus of the investigation right now.”

Satterfield said that since the incident is still under investigation, he couldn’t yet say whether there were any fire code violations at the facility. He did say the owners had been very cooperative and agreed to implement a different kind of cleanup system as well as move some of the inventory to other locations to reduce the fire hazard.

“There are some inherent dangers to that type of business that they’re in in dealing with the waste and shredding it,” Satterfield said. “That does mean that you do have to take more time with housekeeping. A spark is probably going to happen in this business” so you need procedures in place to minimize the possibility of a fire.

A message left Friday afternoon at Columbia Recycling wasn’t immediately returned.

A Dalton firefighter who was taken to Hamilton Medical Center for heat exhaustion is “doing well, but has not returned to work due to medical evaluations,” Satterfield said.

There were no other injuries in the fire, and investigators said there was no structural damage to the building, building five. The facility’s sprinkler system contained the fire to one area, officials said.

The fire department has responded to fires at the plant three times since January 2007. During the first fire, a line supervisor was killed and two other employees were injured in the blaze that started in the old Crown Cotton Mill portion of the business. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found 11 “serious” safety violations and levied $41,400 in fines after an investigation.

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