Chief Brandon Hinz says a rare east wind and mutual aid from 16 departments helped crews stop East Jordan Plastics’ building from burning

By Devin Anderson-Torrez
mlive.com

SOUTH HAVEN, Mich. — In nearly 30 years of service, South Haven Fire Chief Brandon Hinz has never fought a fire for as long as he did at East Jordan Plastics last week — 14 hours.

South Haven Area Emergency Services (SHAES), along with aid from 16 neighboring fire departments, fought a massive fire at the plastics factory at 1600 Stieve Drive.

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An initial fire alarm was triggered at 3:48 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 25.

Firefighters didn’t leave the scene until 6:30 a.m. Saturday.

“This one tapped as many resources as we’ve ever had,” Hinz said.

Hinz said his most recent estimate of water used was 2 million gallons. The fire was contained after four hours.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but the greatest initial hazards were exploding 20-pound propane tanks on the west side of the building.

There was also a 1,000-gallon tank that ruptured.

“We accomplished the major goal, which was to stop the building from getting involved,” Hinz said.

The facility was safely evacuated and no injuries were reported.

All the firefighters involved are also in good health.

Due to the combined effort of the departments preventing the fire from spreading to the building, East Jordan Plastics workers will be able to return to the site this week.

“The neighboring businesses to the south, there’s homes within 200 feet of the property line. to the west, there’s an electrical substation within probably 300 feet to the north. And if that building had caught fire, all of those would have been in jeopardy and were extremely fortunate to have such a good team and such good neighbors that it didn’t reach that point,” Hinz said.

The decision was made to cut the power, resulting in a citywide outage that was resolved around 10:30 p.m. that night.

There were high-tension lines that wrapped around both areas that were burning and some of the poles were on fire –– the decision to cut the power was one of firefighter safety.

“Once we were able to get all of that exterior extinguished and we’re confident that the building wasn’t going to get involved anymore, we were able to have South Haven Electric come out just to determine that it was safe and turn the power back on,” Hinz said.

Debriefing, learning from the event

Hinz said since the fire, the department has been in debrief mode.

The department is taking account of supplies, reaching out to the departments that aided to check up and give thanks and preparing a training day.

“Making sure that if we do have an event this big again in the future that we can (pass along) anything that we might learn from this event,” Hinz said.

Hinz said his team has already taken several lessons away despite being early in the debriefing process.

“We actually had quite a few apparatus that were running out of fuel because we’d been pumping so long. So having a fuel supplier on call is going to be helpful,” Hinz said.

Compton, Inc. a local construction company, was able to go back to their shop during the fire and fill up one of their pickups with a transfer tank to get the department’s fire apparatuses refueled.

“That was pretty clutch because we were getting low and we couldn’t get ahold of anybody,” Hinz said.

EPA was monitoring air quality, but has turned over cleanup to EGLE

The EPA was monitoring air quality around the site and in the downwind neighborhood until Saturday evening.

The EPA established a network of roving and stationary monitors and began receiving readings around 2 a.m. Saturday.

Initial air quality monitoring detected elevated levels of particulate matter, a pollutant commonly associated with fires, in the surrounding neighborhood.

Officials also recorded one “exceedance of volatile organic compounds” overnight on site, however, it did not sustain at that level.

Saturday evening’s results showed no elevated levels for particulate matter or volatile organic compounds.

The EPA consulted with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and determined no further monitoring was necessary.

Hinz said they benefited from a rare east wind.

The wind wasn’t very strong, so most of the smoke column went up and then out.

The homes around the area were below the smoke plume.

“That was kind of a best-case scenario ... because we had plenty of fires before where if it’s windy, it’ll be blowing back toward everybody on the scene, all the neighboring houses, communities,” Hinz said. “With a fire that big, that would have been mass, mass evacuations.”

The EPA left the site at noon Sunday.

Air monitoring results will be posted here.

The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) is overseeing the remainder of cleanup and any response actions.

Firefighters used water to suppress the fire, covering manholes surrounding the site and containing as much runoff water as possible.

The EPA collected a sample and will send the results to EGLE to help the state determine how to manage the remaining water.

East Jordan Plastics will pump the water and store it in large tanks until the state makes a determination, the EPA reported.

The company also placed a floating barrier (a boom) in the nearby creek to collect any potential debris –– primarily plastic pellets.

‘We have an excellent team’

Hinz praised his group at SHAES, from the newest cadet all the way up to the authority board members.

The teamwork was impeccable.

“We have an excellent team,” Hinz said. “We work well together. We all have the same goals and objectives in mind every day for this community.”

He has been trying to put into words what the support from the community has meant to him over the past few days.

“We have a great network of departments around here that all work so well together,” Hinz said. “If that wasn’t the case, there wouldn’t be a building there anymore. It’s as simple as that.

“Very proud of what we were able to accomplish. Sorry that there was the loss that did occur. But all in all, probably about the best case scenario in a situation, an incident, this large.”

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