Fire at Helena Agri-Enterprises in Orion-UPDATE
UPDATE 4-19-18: The company issued a statement regarding the fire, which it says consumed a storage shed and its contents at the Helena Agri-Enterprises, LLC facility. The fire was completely out by roughly 11:00 p.m. No Helena employees or other individuals were injured or threatened.
Tom Seabloom, Helena’s local branch manager says “We are very thankful for the towns’ response in putting out the fire."
He says they want to find out what caused the fire and get back into the business of supporting local growers as soon as possible..
The company has also brought in contractors to address safety and clean-up issues including water and soil monitoring at and around the site.
The company also says reports show that run-off from the fire had been contained, there are no threats to human health or the environment, and clean-up efforts are beginning immediately in accordance with the Illinois EPA guidelines.
"Helena wishes to thank the community of Orion and surrounding areas for their support and patience during the clean-up process."
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UPDATE: Crews are still on the scene as they are monitoring for hot spots overnight. There was a setback as an excavating company struck a gas line and were waiting for Mid American to respond as of 9:30pm.
KWQC TV-6 Emma Hogg is on the scene at the fire at Helena Agri-Enterprises in Orion. Several Response units are on the scene as well.
Emma Hogg spoke to Donald Mcdowell Jr. from the Hazardous Materials team and confirmed that the public is not in danger from this fire. There are possible chemicals burning, no injuries that they know of at this time, and it should not impact the local schools.
The fire is now out although there is still smoldering matter. It is believed that the fire originated in a maintenance shed, it is unknown at this time what chemicals were stored in that shed at the time of the fire.
We will be updating this story as it continues to develop.
Helena Agri-Entreprises has locations in 47 different states and is headquartered in Tennessee.
A company spokesperson, Ed Brister, says about nine employees work at the Orion location and about 5,000 employees work for the company nationwide.
He says the company distributes seed, fertilizer, and agricultural chemicals to farmers in various communities across the nation and says agricultural chemicals for crops would typically be on site.
Brister says emergency and clean-up crews will be on scene analyzing the property to determine if fire water needs to be disposed of in a certain way and are blocking ditches to make sure fire water runoff doesn't leave the site.
