Butterball's Kinston plant heavily damaged in fire sparked by expansion construction

Expansion efforts at the Kinston plant of the nation’s top producer of turkey products experienced a major setback Monday afternoon when a construction mishap apparently set the building afire.

A giant plume of smoke floated from Butterball LCC’s Kinston packaging plant at 4125 Berkley Ave. over U.S. 70 into downtown Kinston for more than an hour as firefighters struggled to extinguish the blaze that partially collapsed the second story, peeled back the siding off the building and nearly caused an explosion.

No one was injured in the fire, which sparked around 2 p.m., but about 20 workers quickly evacuated the building.

Investigators have yet to determine the cause of the fire, but the building’s owner, Walter Poole, and an employee said it started where contractors worked to expand the loading dock on the west end of the plant.

“I smelled something burning and I went outside and saw workers continuing to work on the loading dock,” said Boyd Harris, a fork lift driver at the plant. “They were burning off bolts with a torch. I went back inside, the smoke got stronger and my manager came over and told me to ‘get out, the plant is on fire.’ ”

Eight trucks from the Kinston Department of Public Safety’s Fire and Rescue Division and North Lenoir Volunteer Fire Department surrounded the facility and controlled the fire around 3:30 p.m. They flooded the building with water and used chainsaw’s to cut holes in doors and walls for ventilation.

Firefighters protected the blaze from spreading to a tower adjoining the facility filled with liquid nitrogen, which, if ruptured, could have caused an explosion.

“It went up fast,” Harris said, who talked as he watched firefighters from in front of a vacant building across the street from the plant. “I tried to use a water hose to extinguish some of the fire, but it became too much,” he said.

Poole — who has leased the facility since 2001 to Butterball, formerly Carolina Turkeys — said he gave the Garner-based corporation the green light to expand the loading dock in April.  The plant processes bulk and prepackaged sliced turkey products.

“I was driving by and between the two doors of the dock’s bay, I saw flames shooting up into the overhang and the vinyl siding beginning to melt,” Poole said. “I called 911 and helped make sure people got out because it took off and in a matter of minutes it was full blown with smoke starting to pour out the vent pipe on the roof.”

Poole said he was impressed by the emergency response, which included Lenoir County EMS crews that stayed on scene to monitor firefighters for heat exhaustion.

“Emergency personnel acted on a timely basis and they should be proud of that,” Poole said. “You can always rebuild a building, but can’t replace lives.”

Mike Bliss, vice president of operations for Butterball’s Furthering Processing Division, would not confirm Harris’ or Poole’s accounts of how the fire started as the company is waiting for the KDPS to complete its investigation.

“The most important thing is we got out safely,” Bliss said. “The team did an excellent job of following protocol and exiting the building safely.”

Bill Johnson, director Kinston Public Safety, said firefighters arrived to find the side extension of the building fully involved with heavy fire showing.

“We attacked it in two ways,” Johnson said. “We cut the east wall of the building to get to the second floor and help ventilate smoke from the interior to the outside of the building, where we also had personnel working to control the fire.”

Johnson did not have a damage estimate on the building, but said it experienced heavy fire and smoke damage. Poole also did not have a damage estimate.

“I will have to get inside,” Poole said. “I don’t know if the foundation’s girdles have been compromised or not.”

Wesley Brown can be reached at 252-559-1075 or wbrown@freedomenc.com.