“We will rebuild, we will come back,” said Mike Tomlinson on a windy morning back in early February. It was a dismal day for the manager of the Fiber Brite mote processing plant in Wilson.
The plant had just suffered its worst fire to date: three warehouses, including the main office, had burned to the ground. Established in the eighties, decades of work at Fiber Brite had been reduced to mere ashes.
“Nothing like this had ever happened before. the extent of damage to the plant was so much greater than what we had anticipated, it was basically a total loss,” said Tomlinson as he recalled the devastating loss. “It was a very, very dismal sinking feeling to see everything we worked so hard to build out here was gone.”
The fire started on February 7, 2016 and burned for nearly three days straight as a result of a “hot bale.”
However, instead of ashes, collapsed buildings and burnt cotton bales, now stands three brand new state of the art warehouses. The plant was back up and running by August 15. Today, only one warehouse remains to be completed and within ten days the plant will be operating at peak level.
“Everybody worked together and we got it done, and we have a plant that is first class all the way around and we’re very proud of it,” said Tomlinson. “We’re very blessed.”
Chief Craig Wilke with the Wilson Volunteer Fire Dept., recalls how he and his crew worked on the fire for 48 hours straight. It was the biggest one he had ever had to put out, and even called on neighboring volunteer fire departments for their help.
“I’m glad that he’s able to make a come back, we all thought that this was going to be the final blow as bad as it was, but I’m happy for this company to still stay in business after all of that ,” said Wilke.
To prevent another fire like this from happening, Tomlinson purchased new technology that can detect combustion within a bale before it even happens.
“After a catastrophic fire like that, we did some research and found that there was some fire detection equipment that is available mainly used in nuclear power plants and high tech businesses. We got five of those machines in our warehouses now and load it into our trucks.”
Although hopeful that he and the plant will not have to suffer another loss like that one again, Tomlinson says he now knows what his crew is capable of in the face of true adversity.
And, perfect timing too.
“It’s harvest time, it’s a great time in west Texas.”
