Fire at Pompanoosuc Mills

Around 6:00 am on Monday an alert went out that there was a fire at the Pompanoosuc Mills furniture manufacturing plant in East Thetford. By the time 8:00 am rolled around fire trucks from all surrounding towns were convened on the site and many firefighters were standing by. Thetford's truck was pumping water by a long hose into the factory's wood chip-fired heating plant. A long ladder extended from a Hanover truck to the top of the silo where wood chips, the waste from furniture-making, are stored. 

The furniture factory and adjacent showroom were thankfully not involved.

According to one of the responders, fires in this wood chip heating plant are not unheard of. Wood particles can be as flammable as gasoline at the right wood-to-air ratio.

By 8:30 am over 5,000 gallons of water had been pumped and the pumping continued. Periodically clouds of either steam or smoke billowed from the silo or from the chimney of the heating plant. Thetford's tanker was being connected to pumper trucks from the other towns in turn, enabling it to keep dispensing water without moving vehicles and switching hoses. Empty tankers rolled from the site to replenish their water tanks. A firefighter commented that it was a "wait and see" situation. 

The owner of Pompanoosuc Mills, Dwight Sargent, was on the scene and was able to enter the bottom floor of the heating plant safely to examine the controls.

Responding towns were Thetford, Norwich, West Fairlee, Fairlee, Lyme, Hanover, and Strafford. The Upper Valley Ambulance was on the scene, as was VT EMS District #9. The firefighters themselves were too numerous to easily count. It was an impressive show of mutual aid, without which a community would be hard pressed to control such a situation, one which could have developed very quickly into a serious and economically devastating conflagration. As it was, two firefighters may have suffered burns.

A heartfelt thanks to all the responders.