West Liberty, Iowa-based West Liberty Foods reported that a boiler caught fire on the morning of October 2 in an outbuilding at its Tremonton, Utah, facility.
The fire broke out at approximately 5:40 a.m. local time. All employees were evacuated to a neighboring business and were accounted for while firefighters extinguished the fire.
Three maintenance workers sustained minor smoke inhalation and burns while trying to douse the fire. They are received treatment at a local hospital and were expected to be released later in the day.
“In these situations, the safety of our team members is our first priority,” said Brandon Achen, chief operating officer of West Liberty Foods. “We are grateful no one was seriously injured. We also want to express our sincere thanks to the brave firefighters who responded so quickly and put out the fire.”
“We designed our facility with the boiler located in its own building separate from the processing plant. Fortunately, the fire was confined to the outbuilding and did not spread to our main plant. The incident will have minimal impact on our ability to continue to produce products and fill customer orders.”
West Liberty Foods management is working with local fire officials and its boiler vendor to determine the cause of the fire.
West Liberty Foods processes meat and poultry products that can be found in well-known grocery stores and top restaurant chains across the United States. The company has the capacity to produce over 650 million pounds of food products per year across four facilities.
According to the WATTPoultry.com Top Companies Database, is the 12th largest turkey producer in the United States. In 2019, the company slaughtered 217.9 million pounds of live turkeys.
