On the morning of November 26, the Baldwin Fire Department found themselves on the scene of a fire at Fieldale Farms that could have been fatal— that they were completely unprepared for. Almost four months later, they’re looking at the problem again from a new angle: how area agencies can come together to make sure they can take care of an incident like that one.
On that November morning, the Baldwin Fire Department was contacted by Fieldale Farms to address a fire at the plant by a knock at the door. While they were prepared to deal with a small fire, what they came upon was something much more dangerous; a 4,700-ton capacity storage bin full of soybeans that had started to smolder.
“We got the call about 6:30 in the morning, went over there and then we had to call a full commercial assignment because it was more than what two people could handle,” City of Baldwin Assistant Fire Cheif Shaun Benfield said. “We got over there, and then one of the [Fieldale] maintenance workers and one of the supervisors met us there.”
He says that the Fieldale employees and fire department had to review the company’s MSDS sheets, which document what hazardous materials are on scene, while they tried to figure out how to attack the fire.
“We didn’t have the resources here in Baldwin or in Banks County … to handle it,” Benfield said. The plant in Baldwin sits on the border of Habersham and Banks Counties.
He says that after realizing they couldn’t handle the situation, Fieldale had to call in a contracted company to handle the safety issue. But that left the city of Baldwin wondering what they would do— or what they could do— if this happened again.
That’s what sparked arranging a late-February walkthrough of the facility with the Baldwin Fire Department, Cornelia Fire Department, Habersham County Emergency Services and the Banks County Fire Department to better understand the facility and build game plans to put out fires should they arise. Fieldale pays millions of dollars worth in taxes to Banks County, the City of Baldwin and Habersham County.
“After the incident that had happened earlier, … we felt like there needed to be some pre-planning on our part,” Habersham County Emergency Services Fire Cheif Jeffrey Adams said. “We pre-plan all of the commercial buildings [for emergency services] in the county, and the cities do it with their commercial buildings as well, just to have an idea ahead of time of what issues we may need to mitigate.”
But this is the first time either Baldwin or Habersham can remember ever touring the facility— and this is the first time either has been familiarized with the plant. Both Benfield and Adams say they don’t know why it took Fieldale this long to bring in first responders to help them develop a plan, but they’re glad that it happened.
“We do we feel better than we did,” Benfield said. “We know a little bit more information on how to handle a smaller incident, and they [Fieldale] are more aware of if a larger incident is to happen, they actually have someone on standby that can come in to handle that hazmat situation.”
Adams says he feels “much better,” following the walkthrough, and that Fieldale “stepped up,” to make sure emergency services had the information they needed.
“Just knowing the layout— it’s a massive structure and setup and operation that they have there,” he said. “I think the incident that happened before was kind of a blessing, in that it gave us an opportunity to get together and wrap our hands around everything before something bad happened.”
But even with their combined efforts, Benfield says the situation brewing in that soybean bin was ripe for an explosion, and if an explosion of that size did happen, it’s not something local first responders could handle.
“Long story short, we’re not able to handle if that thing was to, say, explode. We don’t have the resources in this county to handle that,” Benfield said. “It’s a lot. Their safety manager assured us that if there was an explosion, the building would contain … the explosion.”
The incident wasn’t the major fire-related incident local first responders attended to at the Baldwin plant, either. In 2017, a Fieldale employee was burned in a feed mill explosion and fire.
But Benfield does want citizens to know that they, the other local fire agencies and Fieldale are doing everything that they can to make sure they can keep citizens safe in the wake of everything they learned.
“Just know that we’re doing our best,” Benfield said. “They’re [Fieldale] doing their best to make sure that it doesn’t happen, and then we’re a little bit more prepared if something were to happen to get it mitigated pretty quickly.”
