Fire ignites at Indiana plant

No one was reported injured Tuesday when a structure fire at an Indiana County plant caused the burning of a chemical product.

Nonlethal Technologies Inc., located at 9419 Route 286 Highway, Blacklick Township, makes non-lethal riot and crowd-control equipment used in military and law enforcement applications.

The blaze, which started at 11:10 a.m., occurred at an equipment storage shed some 200 feet from the main manufacturing facility, said company owner Scott Oberdick.

"This was really an Amish-style shed, and it will have to be replaced," Oberdick said of the 10-by-15-foot structure. "It looks like the fire started because of something internal in the process equipment itself, like a motor or something."

Responding to the 11:30 a.m. alarm were Aultman, Black Lick, Blairsville and Saltsburg fire companies, and the Coral Graceton RIG Team, according to Indiana County 911.

By the time they arrived, an entire side of the shed was engulfed in flames. The structure eventually burned to the ground.

For minutes after crews arrived on the scene, an inordinate amount of additional smoke spewed from a dough-like substance left to dry inside the shed, Oberdick said. The material, which emits white smoke when burned, is normally used as a training tool to simulate fire and disaster scenes, he said.

"It's kind of like the smoke bombs you see on the Fourth of July. After it is dried, it is packed into canisters," Oberdick said. "For the first couple of minutes, the stuff burned, then it burned off."

No evacuation was needed for the company's 12 employees, and Oberdick said firefighters had the fire out by 1 p.m.

"We're going to look more into a cause (today)," Oberdick said.