Small fire in Meggit equipment, quickly under control

Published 9:45 pm Saturday, February 3, 2018

A machine caught fire in Meggit PLC about 12:44 p.m. Friday.

No one was injured, said Battalion Chief Mike McCurdy.

“They had a machine that’s made to bead blast material out — it’s a cleaning process. It overheated and caused a fire,” McCurdy said.

When firefighters arrived, the fire was “pretty much extinguished,” he said.

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“We had to investigate, overhaul and evacuate the smoke outside of the building,” he said. “The fire didn’t expand outside of the machine.”

Firefighters stayed on scene for about 30 minutes, and employees were temporarily evacuated from the building for safety precautions.

Despite rumors that the flames were shown out of the building, McCurdy said that wasn’t the case. Some of the factories, Meggit included, have a method of cleaning out their kilns which sometimes produces flames showing from the smokestack.

It’s a natural part of the process, McCurdy said.