Newberry fuelwood company has 13th fire in 31 months, fire officials remain concerned

Southern Fuelwood, a Newberry business that produces cooking and heating woods, had its 13th fire in a 31-month period and again is raising concerns among fire officials.

Alachua County Fire Rescue and the Newberry Fire Department responded to the fire Thursday morning caused by a metal kiln catching on fire, NFD Chief Mike Vogel said.

The company has to heat up wood in kilns before it can sell it to companies to get rid of insects and other contaminants. Thursday’s fire was caused by the wood overheating in the kiln, though Vogel said he isn’t sure why it happened. The company switched to using metal kilns instead of wooden ones after a string of several kiln fires.

In June, a fire at Southern Fuelwood left two ACFR firefighters injured and ACFR Chief Harold Theus shared concerns about the amount of fires started at the wood company.

“We have concerns about the frequency in which we respond to structure fires there, the time that it takes to extinguish those fires, and the hazard that it places our firefighters in while extinguishing the fires,” Theus said in June.

More: Alachua County Fire Rescue responds to 12th fire in 29 months at local fuelwood company

He said then that ACFR would take a more conservative approach when responding to fires at Southern Fuelwood and would prioritize the safety of firefighters.

In August, another fire occurred, the 12th in 29 months, though Theus said it was different from the kiln fires the company was having before.

“This was a one-off,” ACFR Chief Harold Theus said. “This was not one of the kiln fires that I've been upset about in the past. I felt last night was hopefully just an isolated incident.”

Vogel said he understands why Theus is frustrated about the fires. The fuelwood company is in NFD’s jurisdiction, though ACFR helps provide mutual aid when putting out these fires.

“He's providing mutual aid or automatic aid to us and one of his firefighters got hurt,” Vogel said, referring to the June fire. “When we have fires out there, it takes a considerable amount of resources so it also drains the resources that are available on the west side of the county.”

A change in code

The owner of Southern Fuelwood, Pat Post, said his business never had any fires until a 2010 Florida code change that now requires him to heat the wood to 160 degrees to kill bugs and other pathogens. Prior to the shift, Post said, the company dried the wood in the sun.

"We always let Mother Nature, the sun and the air dry the wood, but now we're forced to put it in the oven and cook it," Post said. "You're gonna have a fire once in a while when you have an oven trying to cook wood."

Theus said that since the June fire that caused a firefighter to break their leg, Southern Fuelwood has been meeting with the city of Newberry to discuss ways to manage the fires better. Some changes include introducing a designated water supply and changing the way things are stored.

"The city of Newberry has been working with Southern Fuelwood to improve the safety and fire prevention practices that are going on out there, and they have a plan in place that they've been working towards," Theus said in August.

Vogel said the city gave Southern Fuelwood 270 days to resolve the issues that led to fires, the biggest change being the addition of a sprinkler system. They are around halfway through that time period, Vogel said, but the business owners say they are struggling to find someone to install the sprinkles.

“According to them, they've had several sprinkler system installers refuse to do the work because of the bad publicity and they don't want to get involved in that,” Vogel said.

Still, some important changes have been made.

Switching to a metal kiln allowed firefighters to extinguish the blaze in a third of the time it had previously taken, Vogel said.

“They are making progress, we are pleased with that,” he said. “We wish it would be quicker and faster, we're not happy about the fire that happened yesterday, but that's why we're going out to meet with them and have more discussions with the owner.”

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Newberry fuelwood company has 13th fire in 31 months