Firefighters battle flames at renewable energy plant KYMA

KYMA

Firefighters battle flames at renewable energy plant



Thick black smoke is surrounding the renewable energy plant owned by the Imperial Valley Resource Recovery company in the city of Imperial. Imperial County fire fighters are controlling the fire that started Saturday afternoon." You could see the height of the stack we are starting to pull the stack down to increase the oxygen," said Captain Mark Hammerness. Currently, there is only one crew on the scene but Captain Mark Hammerness said several department assisted them throughout the night." The fire was very impressive nice tall flames a lot of heavy smoke , we had to close down highway 111," said Hammerness. Firefighters don't know the cause of the fire but they say the flames spread fast because wood chips were burning." It burns real fast and hot and its not in the burner its out here is the field," said Hammerness. Captain Hammerness said the plant has shut down, but workers are helping protect the equipment." There's wood chips in the hoppers right now, all they are doing is keeping those all wet so that any ash that could fly off if the wind were to pick up doesn't get in the hoppers," said Hammerness. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but 50% percent of the wood chip inventory was damaged.