Firefighters from four counties needed about 90 minutes to put out a stubborn fire Thursday morning in a century-old brick factory at the end of Mill Street near Buffalo Creek.
The blaze, which broke out just before 8 a.m., sent smoke high into the sky.
Like a fog settling over a river, the thick, white and gray smoke spread across most of Freeport and hung in the air until winds blew it away.
Crews were able to limit the blaze to damage of a raw materials processing building for RISG Refractory and Industrial Supply Group. Since May, the company steadily has stepped up production in the former Freeport Brick complex, once the largest manufacturer of ladle brick.
About 35 RISG employees were able to get out of the plant unscathed, and company officials were waiting to assess the damage. Officials said there was no hazardous material in the building.
One unidentified employee received a burn to his hand and was treated by paramedics, said Chief Financial Officer Terry Medovitch.
The company makes heat resistant bricks used in steel, aluminum, chemical, cement and lime plants.
Plant manager Michael Livingstone, a Freeport native, said no damage estimate was available but the burned building was at least 100 years old and eventually was going to be replaced.
"We can replace the building for $1.2 million," he said. "It's the equipment that's important."
Livingstone said an employee was replacing steel in a raw materials receiving chute where materials are ground when a torch apparently started a fire.
"He used a fire extinguisher and couldn't put out the fire so he hit the alarm and the employees evacuated," Livingstone said.
The raw materials are not flammable, but wood in the old structure was dry.
Firefighters from Armstrong County and nearby Butler, Allegheny and Westmoreland counties were hampered by different radio frequencies, Freeport Fire Chief Dom Ravotti said.
Once the crews arrived, they readily worked together, he said.
"When the call goes out, they all come and we go, too," he said.
About 200 firefighters from 13 companies with four ambulance crews arrived to help, although it's usually tough to get full crews early during weekdays because the volunteers are at work.
Firefighters used two special aerial ladder-pump trucks from Leechburg and Saxonburg to send torrents of water onto the burning roof.
Others waited to use axes and chain saws to clear debris.
Some of the pumper truck drivers had to back their vehicles up at least a half-mile along a winding private lane to recharge dry hydrants.
Four ambulance crews waited just in case, and one set up a place for weary firefighters to rest and cool down.
Thursday's weather was cool enough to make it comfortable in the heavy protective gear firefighters wear.
The last time such a large-scale fire response was made in Freeport was during a blaze in a Fifth Street apartment in mid-March 2003.
Ravotti and four firefighters were slightly injured by a flashover while searching for a 14-year-old boy thought to be inside that burning building.
Today, Ravotti and three of the others are fire chiefs, and three of them helped to put out yesterday's fire.
