THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 16, 1996 TAG: 9606160005
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF REPORT
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: 36 lines
Thousands of bales of soggy, shredded paper continued to smolder Saturday afternoon, more than 24 hours after a fire broke out at a recycled-paper warehouse on College Drive.
Firefighters from Suffolk, Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Isle of Wight County responded Friday to the blaze at the Nansemond Cold Storage Co. Inc. in the former General Electric plant in northern Suffolk.
Some fire units remained on the scene all night and all day Saturday, dousing the paper bundles to make sure the fire was extinguished, said Suffolk fire spokesman Jeff Messinger.
The cleanup was expected to last until late Saturday night, he said.
The storage facility held about 9,000 bales of shredded paper that was to be shipped to Union Camp Corp. in Franklin as needed, Messinger said.
The cause of the fire and an estimate of damage had not been determined by Saturday afternoon.
No one was injured.
The fire was reported about 1:13 p.m. Friday. Employees apparently had tried to fight the fire for some time before calling for help, Messinger said.
Nansemond Cold Storage and Union Camp employees used front-end loaders to bring bales outside where firefighters broke them open and inspected them for smoldering fire, Messinger said. ILLUSTRATION: MIKE HEFFNER/The Virginian-Pilot
Workers Saturday use front-end loaders to move soggy bales of paper
from the Nansemond Cold Storage warehouse on College Drive in
Suffolk. A fire, the cause of which is still unknown, broke out
Friday afternoon in the former General Electric plant.
KEYWORDS: FIRE by CNB