Ignited Metal Dust Suspected as Cause of Decco Alloys Fire

Metal dust that caught fire is believed to be at on Midway Drive Wednesday morning, said Twinsburg Fire Chief Richard Racine.

One of the first people on the scene around 11:40 a.m., Racine said he talked to the superintendent of the scrap metal plant, who believed it was copper dust that ignited as it was removed from a 50 gallon drum. Racine said employees tried to put it out before calling 911, but it burned too fast and they evacuated the plant.

No one was seriously injured, but one firefighter re-aggravated a previous injury. Racine said he was fine.

“It was a quick-spreading fire,” Racine said. “It’s a very congested facility because of the type of work they do, so it was very easy for it to spread quickly. And it did.”

As firefighters were battling the blaze in the building, Racine saw a wall was starting to crack and pulled his men out. He said 10 minutes later, part of the roof came down where they had been standing.

Once the roof started to collapse, it covered up most of the area that was burning, making it difficult for crews to reach the flames from the ladder trucks.

“It’s basically like squirting water on an umbrella,” Racine said. “The collapsed roof was preventing the water from penetrating it.”

It took them almost three hours to drown out the flames, aided by a heavy downpour from a passing storm, allowing firefighters to get inside and put out the bigger part of the fire.

“It will probably smolder for a couple of days until that company can get some heavy equipment in there to lift the collapsed roof section and put the rest of it out,” Racine said.

Twinsburg Fire was on three separate calls when the fire started, but fortunately they were all finished and able to respond to Decco Alloys. Racine said he is still finalizing the numbers, but at least 10 other communities, with close to 45 firefighters, to help extinguish the fire.

Racine said the building suffered major structural damage and believes it will be a total loss.

“Right now, until I’m told otherwise, based on my experience and what I saw being out there myself all day, that building’s most likely going to get torn down,” he said.

Decco’s insurance company, along with city building inspectors, will assess the damage over the next day or so and determine where to go from here. However, Racine said they were able to safely recover important items such as business records, software, servers, and a main computer, which he was told should keep Decco Alloys, Inc. in business. He said they could move into a building near the plant that the company was planning on expanding into.

“On the plus side, they’ll be able to get back on their feet sooner,” Racine said. “They at least have a second structure to move into while they decide what to do with this building that caught on fire.”

Representatives from Decco Alloys declined to comment on Wednesday’s fire.

Racine said this fire was more difficult to contain because of the type of business. Because they have more materials stockpiled around the facility, it becomes more difficult to maneuver around and different metals are more difficult to put out if they start burning.

“It actually takes heavy volumes of water because you have to cool it down more than extinguish it,” Racine said.

Power was cut to both businesses next to Decco Alloys as a precaution, and power is being restored today.