Four employees of the Cascades Egg Carton Manufacturing facility north of Brook, IN were transported to area hospitals after a fire broke out Sunday afternoon. Another employee refused medical treatment. The Brook, IN fire chief is advising the employees of the facility to "let the firemen do their job." It's the second such fire at this site where employees risked injury in battling the fire themselves.
Brook-Iroquois Township Volunteer Fire Department chief, Kyle D. Conrad, said Brook and Morocco fire departments received the call at 3:18 Sunday afternoon for a water flow alarm at the facility at 3126 E 500S. A few minutes later an employee called 911 to report a fire. At the time of the call, employees were still attempting to extinguish the fire themselves. Firefighters arrived to find thick smoke inside the building and employees returning to the inside of the building to remove burning egg cartons and extinguishing the fire.
After finally evacuating all employees, Brook firefighters with the assistance of Morocco and Rensselaer firefighters performed salvage and overhaul and finished extinguishing the fire while five ambulances from Newton and Jasper Counties tended to the employees suffering from smoke inhalation.
“This is the second fire at this facility this year where the employees attempting to fight the fire themselves rather than evacuate and let us do our job” said Conrad. “This time it was with more severe consequences”. The Cascades facility suffered a similar fire on May 16th and the fire department response was delayed due to employees attempting to extinguish the fire themselves before calling 911.
The two EMS agencies transported two employees to Franciscan Health Rensselaer, one to St. Anthony Hospital in Crown Point, and one to Riverside Hospital in Kankakee, Illinois. Their conditions were unknown.
Conrad has requested an investigator from the Indiana State Fire Marshal’s Office to assist in the investigation. Cascades management is being cooperative, according to Conrad “We need to ensure that the employees are properly trained to evacuate the building and not delay fire department response or attempt to extinguish a fire themselves. Each time the consequences have been more severe”.
No firefighter injuries were reported and firefighters were on the scene about 90 minutes.
94.1 WGFA
