Near calamity at Dunmore Corporation

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(photo: Brewster Fire Department)

BREWSTER – Firefighters from several departments fought a chemical fire late Friday night and early Saturday at the Dunmore Corporation on the Danbury Road in Brewster.

Dunmore, headquartered in Pennsylvania, is a leading manufacturer of coated, laminated and metalized films.

First Assistant Brewster Fire Chief Mike Bizzaro said the fire was centered in a lab that contained a variety of chemicals, predominantly tylene. “A crew was attempting to mold a film with a piece of paper by using the tylene which resembles glue. Static electricity resulted in spontaneous combustion which set the room on fire. Smoke filtered throughout the entire building forcing the evacuation of the night crew,” he said.

The company’s suppression system extinguished the main portion of the fire but firefighters had to use dry chemical extinguishers to knock down the remaining flames since the chemical was water resistant, Bizzaro said.

It wasn’t until the blaze was snuffed out and the smoke cleared that firefighters realized how much danger they were in since directly behind the room that ignited were 55-gallon drums of highly volatile chemicals stacked from floor to ceiling – each with warnings indicating “Highly Flammable.”

Mutual aid was called in from Putnam Lake, Lake Carmel and the Danbury Fire Departments while the Putnam Hazardous Materials Team and Putnam Fire Investigation Team also assisted as did Putnam Battalion 12 Coordinator Ron Davies and Battalion 13 Coordinator Jamie Gagliardo.

“It could have been a lot worse,” said Chief Bizzaro, adding “as a precaution, each firefighter was decontaminated at the scene. The Haz-Mat team hosed down each interior firefighter before he or she was allowed to enter any piece of fire apparatus.”

No injuries were reported.




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