Large scale fires have happened in Greene County in the past few years.

Power Lift had a fire in August of 2018, Scranton Manufacturing suffered extensive damage from a fire in February of 2020, an eight-alarm fire at a business in Grand Junction in October of 2020, and most recently there was a couple of explosions of a fire at Landus Cooperative in Jefferson earlier this month. Jefferson Fire Chief and Greene County Sheriff Jack Williams says in each one of those situations, they follow incident command protocols, which includes people being in different groups, including accountability, press, safety and resources.

Williams recalls from the initial explosion at Landus on the morning of Friday, May 14th of having to page the Jefferson, Scranton and Grand Junction fire departments until they found out  there were no deaths, injuries and anyone trapped inside any of the structures. 

“And then you kind of change gears and sit back and really assess the situation. What’s safe to do, what isn’t safe, could there be another explosion, and then try and locate where the fires are, and then working with Landus, in this occasion, to figure out the best way to mitigate any fire spread throughout the complex.”

Williams describes additional resources that were needed to tackle a burning 130-foot high structure.

“We would have to call in specialized equipment, like Landus brought in a crane with a grade operator, and also a private fire investigator to help determine how to put those fires out, and how to do it in the most safe fashion that we can.”

With the catastrophic damage that was done by two separate explosions, Landus Cooperative stated that they would have their grain operation up and running by harvest season this fall. The cause of the explosion remains under investigation.