Tyson Beef Plant Burns Down In Finney County (Dodge City, Tonganoxie: insurance, house)

[empires228]

https://www.kwch.com/content/news/Cr...531405381.html

Nothing good can come from this. It took the community nearly 20 years to recover from the ConAgra fire, And ConAgra had chose to walk away after receiving the insurance money and doing the bare minimum to the building. I followed the scanner all last night and it was really tragic that a multibillion dollar company such as Tyson had neglected to implement safety measures like making sure their sprinkler system and fire hydrants are functional. Most of the hydrants on the property were either producing no water or a very low flow.

[thriftylefty]

Somebody was looking the other way. Either OSHA, the local Fire Marshall, or state inspection officials. Sprinklers have to be inspected yearly. If the systems failed after the last round of inspections that would seemed problematic.

[GraniteStater]

A positive update:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tyson...125319384.html

[Mathguy]

Originally Posted by empires228

https://www.kwch.com/content/news/Cr...531405381.html

Nothing good can come from this. It took the community nearly 20 years to recover from the ConAgra fire, And ConAgra had chose to walk away after receiving the insurance money and doing the bare minimum to the building. I followed the scanner all last night and it was really tragic that a multibillion dollar company such as Tyson had neglected to implement safety measures like making sure their sprinkler system and fire hydrants are functional. Most of the hydrants on the property were either producing no water or a very low flow.

Um, Hydrants would be the cities responsibility wouldn't it?

Also, how can you use the phrase "neglected to implement safety measures"? Nobody was hurt???

Frankly, I have to ask. What did they do to make you so angry that you're making such comments?

[empires228]

Originally Posted by Mathguy

Um, Hydrants would be the cities responsibility wouldn't it?

Also, how can you use the phrase "neglected to implement safety measures"? Nobody was hurt???

Frankly, I have to ask. What did they do to make you so angry that you're making such comments?

Most of the people working that shift were not working near the part of the plant where the fire was, but Tyson not maintaining their hydrants and other fire suppression systems made it nearly impossible for the fire departments do work even before the roof collapse. Tyson is not within any incorporated municipality and falls under the jurisdiction of the volunteer fire department in Holcomb. I know for a fact that nearby Sunflower Electric has to pay for someone to come and inspect their equipment yearly, but when Tyson caught fire the departments who responded quickly realized that the hydrants were not in working order.

[thriftylefty]

Normally a fire suppression system is fed by a water source independent of the facilities main water source. They have to be pressure tested yearly. Whether the sprinkler system is a dry one ( filled with pressurized air) or a wet one, when the pressure drops an alarm goes off that should automatically dial first responders. I would think there will be some OSHA paperwork involved.

[empires228]

Originally Posted by thriftylefty

Normally a fire suppression system is fed by a water source independent of the facilities main water source. They have to be pressure tested yearly. Whether the sprinkler system is a dry one ( filled with pressurized air) or a wet one, when the pressure drops an alarm goes off that should automatically dial first responders. I would think there will be some OSHA paperwork involved.

One would think that situation would’ve been better monitored after the ConAgra fire in 2000
where ConAgra had also been neglecting their fire suppression infrastructure. It’s very hard for counties to police businesses and homes in unincorporated areas of the state do to existing laws though. This is why nearly every unincorporated community in the state is a burned out trash hole because the state often does not allow county governments to effectively covering their own areas. Both of the plants in Finney County that have went through fires sat outside the city limits of an adjacent community. Both plants in Dodge City are inside the city limits.

[pepe1]

Originally Posted by empires228

https://www.kwch.com/content/news/Cr...531405381.html

Nothing good can come from this. It took the community nearly 20 years to recover from the ConAgra fire, And ConAgra had chose to walk away after receiving the insurance money and doing the bare minimum to the building. I followed the scanner all last night and it was really tragic that a multibillion dollar company such as Tyson had neglected to implement safety measures like making sure their sprinkler system and fire hydrants are functional. Most of the hydrants on the property were either producing no water or a very low flow.

Are you certain this facility even had a fire sprinkler system? I've been in many slaughter plants and I'd say more often than not, they have no fire sprinkler system.

Where was the fire department able to get fire fighting water? Is this facility hooked up to city water? It looks like its outside of town a bit and may have been on a private water supply?

[Curly Q. Bobalink]

Originally Posted by Mathguy

Um, Hydrants would be the cities responsibility wouldn't it?
Also, how can you use the phrase "neglected to implement safety measures"? Nobody was hurt???
Frankly, I have to ask. What did they do to make you so angry that you're making such comments?

Not necessarily. The Facility I was at (within the Facilities Engineering Dept.) was originally built in a rural area, so it was on its own well and water storage systems. Eventually, the surrounding area was urbanized, but we stayed with our original system because we used so much water for evaporative cooling of our HVAC and processes (up to 70,000 gallons per day in the summer). We had up to a half-million gallons of water in elevated storage, had our own fire pumps, and also had the ability to be connected to city hydrants via Storz valves in a worst-case scenario (for instance, should a fire in the Power House take down the fire pumps). It really was a first-rate, "belts and suspenders" system, and yes, it was inspected and tested annually by an independent company, a demand by our internal regulators, because we had such a high deductible on our insurance. I'm sure our Underwriters required it as well. Our Safety Dept. was a check on the Maintenance Dept. to ensure it was performed.

If it is true that the meat packing plant in question had an impaired system, they will have plenty to answer for, believe me - between their own company's management, their Underwriter, the local Fire Marshall, OSHA, municipal or county governments, the Plant Manager and many others are in for a bunch of hard questions. That being said, accidents do happen - we had a new Security Officer who was not trained properly once, who closed the sectional valves on about half our building's system just before the end of her shift, and it was not discovered for about twelve hours (she was exercising the valves, and not knowing the "righty-tighty-lefty-loosie" rule, left them all closed instead of open, and most all of them had visual indicators that would have told her the valve status, had she looked . We would have been in a World of Hurt had a fire broken out in that section of the building during that period (unless the Officer on Duty had the sense to re-open the valves during the event, but you sure can't count on that). Obviously, there are times when parts of the system need to be taken offline for maintenance, but there are protocols for that as well (local FD is notified, Hot Work is banned, a physical Fire Watch is put in place, etc.).

Bottom line, private fire suppression systems can be just as good or better as the municipal ones. Think about high-rise buildings, if there were no internal suppression support system (pumps or upper floor reservoirs), everything above about 100' would burn uncontrollably until the FD came on scene, and you can't have that.

[KSinmyrearviewmirror]

Tyson faced public opposition in Tonganoxie, KS, back in 2017 re: poultry-processing plant & "chicken ranches." Not the kind I'd be interested in visiting, but the smelly kind. The county eco-devo/KS Dept of Ag/K-State "poultry experts" (chicken ranches don't smell) had greased ALL the skids, except for the residents . . .

Update: After we published this story, Tyson Foods approached several other communities in Kansas. On December 7, 2017, officials from a second community — Sedgewick County — pledged not to offer the company economic incentives to build a plant after residents organized a “No Tyson Sedgwick County” campaign. Then, the company released a statement saying it was “not currently considering any potential property in Kansas.”

https://civileats.com/2017/09/22/how...a-tyson-plant/

When Tyson announced it was continuing to pay employees of the Finney Co. plant, I suspected PR had a great deal of Tyson's attention.