Fire at Lyons metal plant

BW Supply warehouse and offices suffer heavy damage

Investigators with the state fire marshal's office are looking into what started a fire at a Lyons business. The fire started around 7:15 this morning at B.W. Supply Company on County Road 10-3.

It took fire crews from 7 different departments to fight the fire. No one was working inside when the building caught fire. But the company cat, Smokey, was in the office. "I haven't seen the cat yet so we're waiting, we are hoping when they broke the windows the cat jumped out," says B.W. Supply Co. manager Gary Schwertz.

The company melts and pours metal into molds, and because of chemicals used in that process, fire crews say the flames weren't their only concern. Brett Kolb, the Director of Fulton County EMA, says, "We have HazMat on scene, they went in and determined the hazardous chemical we believed to be leaking or compromised by this is still contained in the original container."

Fire crews don't know where or how the fire started, but employees watching on have an idea. One of those workers explains, "One of the employees called me at 10 until 8 this morning and said when he left at 5 a.m. he had been running the core oven that's in the front of the building. So that's where it probably started, the core oven."

The front of the building is destroyed and the office is smoke damaged. But amongst the debris was Smokey. "She was sitting in a pile of glass by the windows where they busted them out," says employee Rick Welch. Despite today's material loss, these employees say they're happy no person or cat was hurt. The owners of B.W. Supply say they hope to be back up and running as soon as possible.

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