Second fire in 10 days causes estimated $5,000 in damage to
Temple Inland plant
Gilroy – A two alarm fire at the Temple Inland box plant – the second in 10 days – caused an estimated $5,000 in damage to the rooftop after a ventilation fan malfunctioned, sparking paper dust to smolder, fire officials said. There were no injuries.
Just before 10pm Tuesday, firefighters from the Gilroy Fire Department and South Santa Clara County Fire District responded to a 911 call reporting flames on the roof. For more than three hours firefighters worked to peel back the metal sheets and insulation protecting the fans to find the smoldering particles.
“It was probably caused by a mechanical issue,” said Division Chief Clay Bentson. “Apparently they had a fire earlier in the day that they didn’t call us out for. It’s hard to tell if it smoldered all day.”
About 5pm, April 3, the machine used to put a wax coating over the boxes malfunctioned, causing a fire inside a different building. The two fires are unrelated, fire officials said.
According to fire officials, the ventilation fan had short circuited earlier in the day. Workers attempted to put the fire out using fire extinguishers, however, some paper particles may not have been out completely and reignited, Bentson said.
Fire officials recommend calling the fire department after such a fire.
“We have better equipment to determine whether the fire is completely out,” Bentson explained. “There’s a lot of machinery in there, and because of the operations they do there it creates a lot of dust and paper particles.”
The building houses cardboard that is manufactured into boxes. Despite the paper fuel inside the building, the fire was contained to the area surrounding the fan.
