Bellevue gets 'all clear' after fire contained at MagReTech

The Huron County Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency issued an all clear for the City of Belle­vue before noon Tues­day after Belle­vue Fire Depart­ment brought a mag­ne­sium fire in a trailer park­ing area MagReTech on CR 177 under control.

Belle­vue Fire Chief Brian Put­nam spoke at a 9:30 a.m. press con­fer­ence Tues­day at the fire sta­tion down­town and told media that the fire had been sup­pressed and could smol­der for sev­eral days.

He said scrap mag­ne­sium in four trail­ers behind the local plant had caught fire. The fire depart­ment had been noti­fied shortly before 5 a.m. Tues­day morning.The city then pre­pared for the pos­si­ble evac­u­a­tion of var­i­ous areas and put The Belle­vue Hos­pi­tal on alert.

“With mag­ne­sium, the method to extin­guish it is to (let) them burn them­selves out,” the fire chief pointed out.

“Our con­cern was for the smoke,” he stressed. He said the fire was cov­ered with M130 Flux, an extin­guisher agent for smoth­er­ing fires where water can­not be used.

“We’re still under inves­ti­ga­tion of the cause of the fire,” he told a fire hall full of TV and print media and Belle­vue City Coun­cil members.

Offi­cials were still on the scene this after­noon at CR 177. Put­nam said that the cause of the fire had yet to be deter­mined and more infor­ma­tion would be release when the cause was determined.

Due to the fire Tues­day morn­ing, Pre­ci­sion Auto­mo­tive was closed and Belle­vue City Schools were closed for the day.

Posted by Becky Brooks on Mar 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.