TUESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2001
Fire closes meat plant, destroying 30 jobs
By Ryan Good
Staff Writer
An early morning fire left about 30 people out of work Monday.
Tiffin, Bascom, Fostoria and Clinton Township firefighters were called to the Pioneer Meat Packing plant on South River Road at 1:16 a.m.
"The second floor and part of the first was gutted," said Tiffin Fire Chief William Ennis.
He said the fire is being ruled as accidental, but the cause remains under investigation.
The plant was closed at the time of the fire and no injuries were reported, Ennis said.
"Somebody was in at about noon on Sunday to feed the livestock," the chief said.
Damage estimates to the building were unavailable and damage to the building was extensive.
"It's gutted. The whole plant, shipping, the coolers, the USDA office, the main area. We see it as a total loss," said David Dunn, and employee of the plant Monday afternoon. Most of the roof on the building is gone.
Some of the hogs that hadn't been slaughtered did survive, Dunn said, sitting outside the building.
"There are 80 hogs in the barn," Dunn said pointing to an adjacent building, "Every one of them survived,"
Dunn worked as a manager at the plant, ordering livestock, running the slaughtering and hiring new employees.
He added that about 95 hog carcasses also were burned in the fire.
Firefighters spent a total of 12 hours at the scene.
"We contained it in about three hours and it took another three to extinguish it," Ennis said, adding that the remainder of the time spent at the scene was checking for hotspots and conducting an investigation into the origin and the cause of the blaze.
"It started in the attic in the one-story section of the building," Ennis said.
The plant functioned at a slaughterhouse and shipping point before the fire.
"We slaughtered hogs, boned them out, and put them in bins," Dunn said. "Most of the meat goes to Chicago to pork-processing plants that make lunchmeat and trimmings."
Operation at the plant, which slaughtered and shipped about 100 hogs a day, hasn't been running for very long.
"The end of this week would have been one year here," Dunn said.