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Amrize Alpena Plant fire Saturday; crews extinguish after 3-1/2 hours

ALPENA — The Alpena City Fire Department was requested for a structure fire at the Amrize Alpena Plant Powerhouse at approximately 6:30 a.m. Saturday morning, according to a press release from Alpena Fire Chief Rob Edmonds.

Amrize is the new name of the former Holcim, former Lafarge plant.

Upon arrival, fire crews were met by plant personnel advising a fire contained to a main commercial sub panel electrical cabinet within the powerhouse building was burning. Fire crews assessed the situation and command was established. The decision was made to shut down and de-energize all power to the remaining subpanels prior to fire crews working to extinguish and contain the fire as it was a commercial high voltage/amperage main power supply to plant operations.

Access to the interior of the sub panel was made and application of CO2 and dry chemical extinguishing agents were utilized to bring the fire under control and extinguished using large portable units from within the plant ops.

The initial response of 11 on-duty personnel, and the Deputy Chief and Fire Chief, were supported by the oncoming duty shift of five additional personnel to handle the incident for a total of 18 personnel for incident management.

Alpena Power Company personnel and Amrize Alpena Plant personnel assisted in the incident.

Fire crews were on scene for three-and-a-half hours, confining and extinguishing the sub panel. Plant personnel remained on scene to work on reestablishing operations and restoring their power to minimize down time.

No one was injured and there are no safety or exposure issues to the public as a result of the incident, the press release explained.

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