September 29, 2006

Fire damages Pilgrim's Pride poultry plant in US state Arkansas

A fire at a Pilgrim's Pride poultry processing plant caused more than US$2 million dollars worth of damage and temporarily shut down work in one part of the plant, fire officials told the El Dorado News-Times.

The fire started Monday (Sep 25) night in the insulation of a cooking unit in the by-products section of the plant, officials with the El Dorado Fire Department said. The area around the cooking unit received the heaviest damage, while there was minimal damage in other rooms. Several large pieces of equipment also were damaged in the fire.

No injuries were reported in the fire, which halted work in the by-products, or protein conversion, section of the plant, the newspaper reported.

Fire officials estimated the fire caused an estimated US$2.5 million in damages, but a Pilgrim's Pride spokesman said the company was still assessing the damage. Ray Atkinson, director of corporate communications at Pilgrim's Pride Corp, said the company is investigating the fire.

"It takes a while to go through things, and we don't really have any solid figures at this point. To say anything right now would be guessing," Atkinson told the newspaper.

Firefighters said failure to clean equipment was a contributing factor to the blaze, but also noted that an automatic sprinkler system was shut off and did not activate when the fire started.