Allan Appel Photo
Responding rapidly to avert a chemical blaze at the Von Roll Isola plant in Fair Haven, firefighters extinguished a fire in the front half of the building before it spread to the rear where flammable chemicals were stored.
Here’s what happened according to Assistant Chief of Operations Ralph Black:
Just before 9 a.m. a call came in from the Von Roll plant at 115 River St., which manufactures electrical coverings and insulations for, among other purposes, the inside of helmets for the U.S. military.
First units arrived within three minutes. Firefighters saw flames shooting out the windows fronting River Street. Plumes of dark smoke were coming out the ventings on the roof as well.
Black (at left in photo with Lt. Chris Toforo of Engine 9, from Ellsworth Avenue) called for a second alarm right away. Since the department knew the inventory of chemicals in the plant, he called for a third alarm quickly. The heat of the day and the humidity were additional reasons for more firefighters, so they could rotate.
Black also contacted the State Department of Environmental Protection, given the chemicals stored.
“We cut it off at the midsection,” Black explained, lavishing words of praise on the arriving firefighters.
Had they not — and had the fire spread toward Chapel Street, where solvents and lacquers were stored in quantity — the potential for a chemical fire was high.
Fighting that kind of fire would have been a different matter, Black explained. It would have been “defensive.”
“They did a tremendous job keeping flames away from the hazardous materials,” he said.
To achieve that result, crews sprayed exterior flames in the front on River while other firefighters were deployed doing reconnaissance in the front of the building toward Chapel. where the flammable chemicals were kept.
That was important because flames began to spread from River across the top of the building toward Chapel. However, firefighters were able to stop those as well at the midsection, said Black.
Black said that 50 firefighters and some 16 pieces of apparatus were involved. By 10 a.m. one could see the intersection of Blatchley and River still laced with hoses. (See photo at the top of the story.) Water from the sprinkler system within the building was still spraying down.
That system appeared to be operating, said the assistant chief.
Assistant Drill Master Lt. Renee Cordova (at left), one of the trainers at the fire academy, by now had brought over future NHFD rookies to observe. They just happened to be studying hoses, how to deploy them and how to put them back on the trucks.
The fire marshal’s crew was on the job as well. Black said the investigation was ongoing, but it appeared that something had gone wrong at one of the incinerators or vents within the building.
The company, which is based in Switzerland, has 35 employees, many from the local area. It has been at its Fair Haven location for upwards of 20 years.
No one on the firefighter or employee side was injured, and the fire was entirely extinguished within 30 minutes.Through the gaping hole on the River Street facade, water from the sprinkler system was still pouring down.
“It was moving fast. In a little more time God knows what would have happened,” Black concluded.
Von Roll’s operations manager Patrick DeCarlo said he did not want to talk to the press. He did speak with Mayor John DeStefano, who arrived on the scene shortly after 10 a.m.
The mayor said DeCarlo was “grateful that all his workers are safe and his mind is shortly going to be about getting it [the plant] up and going.”
Praising the fire department’s response, the mayor added that such events remind us that New Haven still has a vibrant manufacturing base.
“Our ability to service these companies with fire personnel is key,” the mayor said.
As a precaution, the DEP planned on testing the air and the water run off as well, said the mayor. Assistant Chief Black said that the preliminary testing of the run off already indicated that there was no chemical leakage. Since the damage was contained to the front of the building, the mayor thought there was no question but that the plant would resume manufacturing. When that might be was not able to be determined.
“The story here is the dog didn’t bark,” the mayor said. “You could have had a fireball.”