BY ALAN J. FREEDMAN
The merits of consolidation, outsourcing, globalization, and other economic realignments have long been debated. One indisputable result of transferring production offshore has been that a number of U.S. manufacturing facilities have been vacated. While some factories will remain idle until they are renovated for a new use, many will remain vacant until they collapse, burn, or are razed. Communities are left with an increased fire hazard and reduced tax revenues to finance fire protection and other municipal services.
HISTORY OF THE MILL
The Beacon Manufacturing Company was originally located in New Bedford, Massachusetts. In 1925, the company began operating on former farmland in Swannanoa, North Carolina. By 1935, all operations had been moved from New Bedford to Swannanoa. Much, if not all, of the Massachusetts plant was moved by rail to North Carolina, not only the machinery but also bricks and other structural components. A mill village was built directly across the street from the plant, allowing workers to walk to work from the closely spaced wood-frame single-family dwellings.
During World War II, the plant employed more than 2,000 people, who produced blankets for the military. After the war and for the next 25 years, blankets were produced for the general market, and approximately 1,500 workers were employed at the mill. The company was then sold several times, and financial problems resulted in the 2002 closing of the mill. The machinery and production materials were sold to the highest bidder at a bankruptcy auction. Owner-ship of the mill was transferred to the bank holding the mortgage; the mortgagor put the mill up for sale.
THE COMPLEX
The mill was built on a mostly level 42-acre site. Additions to the complex over the years resulted in a structure of varying height and construction classifications. Part of the mill was heavy timber, part was ordinary construction, and another section was noncombustible. To accommodate the production process, all sections of the mill were connected by a series of passageways and conveyor tunnels. The result was a mill that varied in height from a single story on a slab foundation to six stories with a basement and a subbasement that contained the unusual feature of two creek-fed lakes. At approximately 1,300 feet, the mill was almost one-quarter mile long. The complex was supplied with public water; a number of hydrants were in close proximity. The mill was equipped with sprinklers and standpipes. Fire doors were in place to help compartmentalize any fire that might occur. The mill contained 1.4 million square feet under one roof. To put this in perspective, the mill’s area was equal to that of one thousand 1,400-square-foot single-family homes.
PREPLANNING
After the mill shut down, Swannanoa Volunteer Fire/Rescue Department (SVFD) members entered the mill to do a hazard assessment that would assist them in preplanning. Utilities had been shut off, and sections of the building were in serious disrepair. Water infiltration was evident, sections of the floor were buckled or open to the floor below, and the standpipe and sprinkler systems were out of service. The condition of the building, which could have caused needless injury to inspectors, resulted in the termination of the inspection. It was decided that any advanced fire would be fought from the outside. No attempt would be made to save a building that was actually decreasing, rather than increasing, the value of the land on which it stood. Notice had been received that all hazardous waste had been removed from the property, and the brief inspection did not reveal the presence of any hazardous materials. The incident proved otherwise.
 Figure 1. Area of the fire scene. (Diagram by Larry Pierson.) |
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THE FIRE
At 03:55 a.m. on Wednesday, September 3, 2003, the Buncombe County emergency operations center (BCEOC) received a call reporting a fire at the Beacon plant and dispatched the SVFD to the incident. Three firefighters, including Assistant Chief Dennis Gregory, responded on Engine 6 from a firehouse adjacent to the mill that had been built on land donated to the department by the Beacon Manufacturing Company. As the engine turned the corner onto Whitson Avenue, firefighters observed flames coming through the roof of the four-story section of the mill.
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The fire would be fought defensively. The primary objectives would be to contain the fire, protect the exposures, and ensure the safety of emergency responders and the residents of the mill village. Gregory assumed command and began to formulate a plan to accomplish these objectives. He ordered additional alarms and made a special request for aerial apparatus. The BCEOC, which uses computer-aided dispatch equipment, dispatched additional companies to the fire and began to assign other apparatus to move up/fill in assignments.
The additional alarms brought all available SVFD members to the scene from their homes. Chief of Department Anthony Penland, the son of former Beacon mill workers, assumed the duties of incident commander. Deputy Chief Larry Pierson became the operations officer; Gregory was assigned as a sector officer. The command post was established at the firehouse. The operations section was in front of the firehouse.
Because of the size of the mill and the distance responding apparatus had to travel to reach the scene, all companies received placement orders as they arrived. Pierson used a large aerial photograph of the facility and a large, white board to help him strategically locate apparatus. He ensured that check-in lists had been completed. After about an hour, a staging area was established in the parking lot of the First Baptist Church, a block from the scene. Lt. Dave Strickland and Firefighter Doug Lane managed the staging area. Establishing the staging area made it easier to track resources. Getting a count of engines, ladders, tankers, support vehicles, and personnel in the staging area allowed for better distribution of those resources and provided a foundation on which to build a coordinated effort.
Each of the volunteer fire departments in Buncombe County is a separate corporation. Although they frequently train together and often assist one another, nine of the 24 departments use slightly different incident command system (ICS) geographical terminology. Additionally, a number of departments from other counties were responding to this incident. To eliminate confusion, each company was given a printout with an aerial photo of the scene that designated the exact position where the company would be assigned and the sector designation of this position. All companies were operating on the North Carolina state emergency radio frequency. The single frequency sufficed because of the orderly expansion and contraction of the ICS and an insistence on radio discipline. In spite of the scope of the operation, radio communication problems were minimal, although additional channels would have been useful.
During the initial stages of the fire, Buncombe County Emergency Services Director Jerry Vehaun responded and established the emergency operations center at the firehouse, which is equipped with computers, printers, telephones, conference tables, overhead projectors, a kitchen, and a generator capable of producing enough electricity to operate all the equipment in the building. The mobile emergency operations center bus that would normally have been used remained available in case it would be needed at a more remote simultaneous incident. Vehaun and his staff worked to support the IC by ensuring that any needed municipal, county, state, federal, or private resources would be available.
WATER SUPPLY
The plant was surrounded by public hydrants, but the huge demand strained the capacity of the municipal water system. Several strategies were employed to reduce this burden and increase the water available for master stream appliances. Seven tankers shuttled water from distant hydrants to dump tanks that were then drafted from; large-diameter hose (LDH) was run from a hydrant on the other side of the Swannanoa River, more than 1,000 feet from the closest point of the building. To augment the municipal water supply, two engines drafted from the river. Like the hose from the remote hydrant, the two LDH supply lines were run through a culvert that runs under U.S. Highway 70, a major thoroughfare between the plant and the river. Running the supply lines under instead of across the highway allowed vehicles to travel unencumbered and responding emergency vehicles to reach the scene without being delayed by backed-up traffic. Water was also drafted from a creek behind the mill. This hose and hose from a hydrant located in the rear of the mill were run between the crossties that support the railroad tracks, allowing the trains to continue to run.
OIL TANKS
Four large tanks containing #6 fuel oil that had been used to fire the mill’s burners were located behind the mill. Overhead fuel lines ran from these tanks into the mill. It was not known if any oil was in the tanks or the lines. Because the lines were in the collapse zone, and because of the viscosity of the oil, it was decided to knock down the fuel lines with a track hoe before fire impingement or a wall collapse ruptured the lines or the heated oil, if any was in the lines and intensified any potential exposure of the tanks or created an environmental problem. Any oil remaining in the lines would be more easily dealt with while it was still in an unheated syrupy state. Before the lines were breached, three people, including a former mill worker, confirmed that the shutoff valves, located in a locked fenced-in area, were closed. There was no evidence of any oil flowing from the tanks. The track hoe was also used to demolish a conveyor tunnel connecting the mill to a warehouse behind the mill to prevent fire from traveling from the mill into the warehouse by way of the conveyor tunnel.
 (3) A predawn view from the staging area. (Photo by Melissa Gregory.) |
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 (4) The oil supply line after breaching. (Photo by Doug Gregory.) |
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PROTECTING THE VILLAGE
An engine was positioned on Richmond Avenue specifically to allow for a rapid response to any simultaneous incident that might occur in the mill village and to extinguish any fires that might result from embers falling on the roofs of the residential structures. As it turned out, no embers fell in the village, but they did fall on lawns as far as five miles away. County environmental health employees monitored the air quality. Residents were sheltered in place until approximately 7:30 p.m. Wednesday evening when elevated levels of hydrogen sulfide were detected in the air. It was decided that all residents within 1,000 feet of the mill would be evacuated. County EMS and law enforcement personnel along with community volunteers conducted the evacuation and established a list of evacuees. Some residents elected to go to the Williams School, but most preferred to relocate to the homes of family or friends. After several hours, air quality readings normalized and the weather specialist determined that the wind would not shift in the direction of the village; the evacuation status was changed from mandatory to voluntary.
The operation continued to go well. By Thursday morning, firefighters were confident that the threat to the community had been greatly reduced. Vehicles were refueled by county school department and city of Asheville fuel trucks, crews were relieved as operational periods expired, and volunteers from several community organizations were cooking meals for firefighters at the First Baptist Church, where the staging area was located. A dormitory had also been established at the church. Pierson transferred command of the operations section to Lt. Jeremy Knighton and did a walk-around of the site. He found that a section of the mill thought to present an elevated hazard to exposures because of cotton bales stacked inside was in fact empty. A private contractor’s demolition crane was on-scene to knock down unstable walls; the incident was evolving flawlessly. It seemed that pouring water on the mill for a few more days would successfully extinguish the largest structure fire in department history.
HAZ MAT
It was discovered on Friday morning that oil had been leaking into the Swannanoa River. A shutoff valve controlling the flow from one of the four tanks allowed oil to enter a creek that flowed under the mill and then into the river. It was not known who had opened the valve. [On investigation, responders said they did not open the valves. There is some speculation that the arsonist(s) may have done so after the fire department ensured that the valves were closed. Deputy Chief Pierson is absolutely sure that the valves were still in the closed position the day before, that the valve was not defective, and that it unquestionably had been opened.] The valve was closed, and a private environmental cleanup firm was contacted. Already on-scene were the regional response team and the Buncombe County Haz Mat Unit. Firefighters worked with the contractor to set up booms and underflow dams. Vacuum trucks were used to recover the oil. A fire engine drafted clean water from the creek before it flowed by the oil tank, became contaminated, and flowed under the plant. This action reduced the flow of the oil-contaminated creek water into the river.
Because of the rapid response and the hard work of the 80 to 100 people assigned to controlling and cleaning the spill, the situation was quickly resolved. Damage to river plant and animal life was minimal and was not detectable beyond two miles. More than 15,000 gallons of #6 fuel oil were recovered and 45,000 gallons of oil-contaminated water treated. The four oil tanks, which have a combined capacity of approximately 250,000 gallons, have now been emptied. In retrospect, although the valves were behind a locked fence, it would have been prudent to have had firefighters or law enforcement officials guard the valves to ensure that unauthorized personnel would not open them.
CROWD CONTROL
By Monday, most of the fire in the now partially collapsed mill had been extinguished, but the extensive area of the fire scene made crowd control extremely challenging. Spectators were crossing into the hot zone to carry away bricks as souvenirs of the mill, which had been an important part of the community for generations. Firefighters decided to reduce the chance of injury to spectators by moving a pile of bricks to a safe area and allowing open access to the pile.
INVESTIGATION AND AFTERMATH
Tuesday, six days after the fire began, while investigators from the Asheville-Buncombe Arson Task Force, the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) waited for the debris to cool enough to allow them to search for evidence, a still intact laboratory was found to contain hundreds of containers of various chemicals including ether and hydrogen peroxide, two chemicals that can destabilize with age. Environmental workers promptly removed the dangerous chemicals, which necessitated the temporary evacuation of several nearby commercial establishments. Chemicals that lacked explosive potential were removed later in the week. The extensive damage prevented investigators from finding a definite cause of the fire, which is thought to have been started, intentionally or not, by human hand.
Note: The June 23 edition of the Asheville-Citizen-Times reported that a 19-year-old male was arrested allegedly for using a pipe bomb to start the mill fire. There are two other suspects.
The uninsured mill was a total loss. After the building is razed, the property will be sold. The debris will be transported to a hazardous waste landfill because of the asbestos and other potentially dangerous substances it contains. Materials that can be safely recycled will be. The cleanup will take nearly a year, will cost about $2 million, and will involve the removal of approximately 57,000 tons of debris.
In total, 32 fire departments and 367 fire personnel were involved in the effort; 91 firefighters were actively engaged at the company level at the height of the fire. Additionally, 22 EMS personnel, 38 logistical support personnel, and nine people from other agencies were involved. Equipment used included 24 engines, seven ladder trucks, seven tankers, 17 support vehicles, 19 patrol cars, and four ambulances. The use of the ATV to shuttle personnel, supplies, and equipment was so extensive that a set of tires had to be replaced. Approximately 30 million gallons of water from the municipal system and 10 million gallons of drafted water were used. In spite of the disastrous potential, no injuries were reported.
 (5) The former exterior wall exposed by collapse. Note that the Beacon logo reads “New Bedford, Mass.” (Photo by Doug Gregory.) |
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- Although department leaders are extremely proud that nobody was injured during this extensive operation, several actions were observed that could have resulted in serious or fatal injuries. One firefighter was observed operating an elevated master stream appliance at the tip of an aerial ladder. The ladder pipe evolution is performed much more safely by using a remote-controlled device, if available, or by using halyard ropes to direct the stream from the ground. The practice of placing a firefighter at the tip of a straight stick aerial ladder is more easily rationalized than justified.1
LESSONS LEARNED AND REINFORCED
Another ladder company was observed with two firefighters operating a master stream appliance, one at the tip of the aerial and the other a half-dozen rungs below the tip. This is an unacceptable practice that should have been halted immediately by the sector or safety officer. The department involved needs to take steps to ensure that elevated master streams are operated in a manner that subjects personnel to the least degree of risk.
- Preplanning is essential. The decision to operate defensively was made before the fire began. Integrated emergency plans can be inserted into the incident plan as the situation develops.
As an example, there were no plans to deal with an electrical shutdown necessitated by the fire. The general plan for electrical failures was implemented. This included providing for the fire station’s power needs by installing a natural gas-fueled generator sufficient to power everything in the building. Community volunteer organizations, as they would do during a power failure when those who rely on electricity to power the pumps that supply well water to their homes are left without water, established two water distribution centers Wednes-day morning to provide potable water to those people living in the higher elevations served by the municipal water system that had no water pressure as a result of the firefighting effort. By noon Thursday, electrical power and water pressure had been restored, allowing the generator to be shut down and both water distribution centers to be demobilized. The fire station had been without power for a short time on Wednesday because the gas company had to shut down a line that ran under the burning plant, causing the fire station generator to be without fuel until the gas company was able to supply the station from another line. While, in this instance, multiple mobile power sources could have been quickly placed into service had that become necessary, multifuel capability is an asset to consider when selecting stationary emergency power sources.
- The existence of a preincident database allowed for the timely procurement of specialized resources such as the track hoe, the demolition crane, and trucks to refuel apparatus. Cooperative agreements must be in place prior to the incident.
- Although this specific situation was complicated by the bankruptcy of the company, a more accurate accounting of hazardous materials on a site is needed. When a plant has closed, the requirement for reporting hazardous material information to authorities ends; therefore, there is no sure way of knowing if chemicals found in a plant have been there since it was operating or if they have been dumped there since the plant closed. A number of possible solutions have been proposed that would give governmental agencies more assurance that hazardous materials are not present. Whatever the solution might be, this incident demonstrated the need to explore the problem and consider amending current requirements.
- The policy of Buncombe County Emergency Services is to assist business owners to find another business that will be able to use pure product. What is waste at one company may be usable at another. The value of this policy was demonstrated by the negative impact the fuel oil alone had on the incident. It would have been far better for all involved if a request had been received for help in locating another user once the fuel oil was no longer needed for manufacturing or space heating purposes. Perhaps County Emergency Services personnel can cite this incident as it reminds business owners that resources exist that provide options to letting potentially hazardous materials remain in locations where they may become a problem.
- Regional planning and training allow departments to work more effectively together and many small departments to cooperatively form a powerful fire suppression force. It is helpful to know if other departments use different ICSs so that orders and instructions are not misinterpreted. The printout given to companies in the staging area provided an effective solution to this problem. At some point in the future, fire departments may agree to adopt a mutual ICS, but the printout would still be a valuable tool to help minimize misunderstanding of assignments.
- The planning required to ensure that personnel from volunteer departments are relieved with fresh replacements during extended operations can present a challenge. While some primary employers are very supportive, others will not allow their employees time off to fight a fire, especially if the fire is in another community.
- Media relations are very important. The public information officer held regular briefings. Additionally, one reporter was allowed to remain at the operations section to observe and listen to the staff as they performed their duties. This proved to be a valuable learning experience for the reporter and the firefighters.
It was heart wrenching for residents to watch the mill that once was the reason for the town’s existence burn, but fire damage to property other than the mill was minimal, and no deaths or injuries occurred. This well-planned and executed operation was a fine example of interagency and community cooperation and support that highlighted the dedication of the firefighters involved.
Thanks to Buncombe County Emergency Services Director Jerry VeHaun, Buncombe County Hazardous Waste and Environmental Manager Denese Ballew, and SVFD Deputy Chief Larry Pierson for their assistance with this article.
Endnote
1. For more on this subject, see Fire Engineering Letters to the Editor, October 2000 and May 2003, and Roundtable April 2001.
ALAN J. FREEDMAN, a former firefighter, worked 18 years in fire suppression. He has a B.S. in fire science and an MPA.
