Sawmill Fire Draws 10 Fire Departments

SNYDER TOWNSHIP, Pa. (EYT) – An afternoon fire at Watt Lumber Company on Sawmill Road brought in 10 fire departments.

The fire broke out in a building that housed a saw and a debarking machine. Brockway Fire Chief Ralph Reed said the building is a total loss. The building that housed cut lumber was still standing.

“Crews were back there welding in the area,” Reed said. “They thought they had the all the sparks wetted down enough. They went to lunch and when they came back, saw smoke. They tried to put it out, but it was too involved, so they called us.”

Firefighters from Brockway, DuBois, Sandy Township, Horton Township, Pine Creek, Falls Creek, Brookville, Warsaw, and Reynoldsville came to the blaze. Penfield stayed at Brockway’s fire station on standby.

No one was injured in the fire.

The fire departments set up shaded areas and rehabilitation areas to help manage the heat. Reed did not want any to suffer from heat exhaustion. Members of different departments and DuSan Ambulance rolled a cooler full of water bottles around the scene.

An excavator and loader came to clean out the building and pull the tin off the roof for the firefighters to look for hotspots.

“We would like to thank the departments on the scene here and on standby,” Reed said. “It took a lot of people due to the heat. We wanted to rotate people out, so we didn’t have any injuries or heat exhaustion.”

The fire marshal will investigate the fire due to the fact that it happened in a commercial building.


Copyright © 2024 EYT Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Any copying, redistribution or retransmission of the contents of this service without the express written consent of EYT Media Group, Inc. is expressly prohibited.

Comments are temporarily closed. A new and improved comments section will be added soon.