TREMONTON – An early morning fire at West Liberty Foods located at 705 N. 2000 West near Tremonton sent two people to the hospital with burns and caused the evacuation of the facility. Homes near the facility were also evacuated.
Blair Westergard a battalion chief and incident commander of the fire said they call came in just after 5:30 a.m. and they had reports of some people being burned inside of the building.
“When we arrived, flames were coming out the roof and we had reports of people inside,” he said. “It was a significant fire we think started in the boiler room.”
They company heats processing oil and it caught fire.
“We were worried the ammonia tanks would catch fire, but they didn’t,” he said. “The oil tank holds 15,000 gallons of oil.”
Two people went to the hospital one in a personal vehicle and the other in ambulance. Westergard didn’t know their condition.
Besides the Tremonton Fire Dept., Garland Fire and Brigham City also brought fire trucks to help extinguish the flames.
“We had two engines from Garland and a ladder-truck from Brigham helping us on the fire. That gave us two ladder-trucks and four engines on the scene,” he said. “The fire will be investigated by the Utah State Fire Marshal’s office.”
Tremonton Police Chief Kurt Furtig said the fire department got there in good time.
“It was definitely a big fire and Tremonton Fire had a really good response time and kept the flames from spreading to other parts of the building,” he said. “We lifted the evacuation order about 7:30 am and some of the West Liberty employees went back to work.”
Box Elder Economic Development Director Mitch Zundel said he thought West Liberty employs nearly 800 people.
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