It’s now been well over 24 hours since a fire broke out at the Fiber Brite Processing Plant in Wilson, where flames continue to blaze.
The Wilson Volunteer Fire Department was paged at around 2:50 pm Sunday, and arrived immediately after. Since then, firefighters have been working around the clock to maintain the fire the best that they can. Fire departments from surrounding communities such as Tahoka, O’Donnell and Slaton, even responded for back-up as well as the Red Cross, to help provide relief and aide for firefighters working through the night.
Wilson Fire explained that the plant cleans cotton and removes fiber, and much of that dry organic material can get caught during the ginning process and smolder over time. At the moment, it appears the fire was caused by a hot bale in the central warehouse.
Craig Wilke, chief at the Wilson Volunteer Fire Department, says that it will most likely take a few days for the flames to completely die down and that he is thankful for the extra help from the surrounding communities in managing the fires.
“It’s got to burn itself out, you cant put it out,” said Chief Wilke. “You just can’t put a cotton fire out. We’ve got spots where we’ve poured water on, thousands of gallons, and come back and it’s burning again. It just will not, you can’t put it out.”
The plant manager, Mike Tomlinson, says it’s not the first fire he’s had to deal with a fire at his plant, but it’s certainly the biggest. At the moment, he says it’s impossible to calculate exactly how much money in damage everything will come out to, but that it is undoubtedly a multimillion dollar setback for them.
“This one is catastrophic,” said Tomlinson about the fire. “We haven’t been able to get inside the plant, and depending on that damage, it could be little or it could be great, but it’ll be several day before we know the extent of our loss.”
As of right now, all but one of the warehouses at the plant have been ripped apart and burned down. Volunteers with the fire department and from surrounding communities will continue their work until the flames have completely died down.
Tomlinson says despite the major financial setback and the loss of the warehouses, the plant must look forward.
“We will rebuild. We’ll come back.”
