Electrical fire at Peterson Farms causes minimal damage.

Electrical fire at Peterson Farms causes minimal damage.

By Allison Scarbrough, Editor.

HART TOWNSHIP — Hart, Shelby-Benona and Ferry Township fire departments responded to a small electrical fire at Peterson Farms Tuesday afternoon, Dec. 14.

No one was injured, and minimal damage occurred, said Richard Raffaelli, chief operating officer at Peterson Farms, Inc., which is a food products supplier.

A total of 22 employees were evacuated out of the approximately 900 employed at the facility. “We didn’t evacuate the entire campus — we evacuated the employees that are in that area,” said Raffaelli. The fire occurred in a separate storage building from the production plant. It is located in the back of the campus.

“Protocol requires that we evacuate anyone in the immediate vicinity.”

There was damage to rubber belts, but nothing “substantive,” he said, and there is no damage to the structure.

The fire was discovered around 1:40 p.m.

“The suppression system (sprinklers) went off, and the alarm went off which sends it to the fire departments, and they came running.”

Peterson Farms is equipped with many internal safety measures to handle fires.

“We have four drills per year and a containment team of 14 trained people to run the event on site,” said Raffaelli. “We have six or seven firefighters that work for us with 80 or 90 (employees) with first aid training.”

Fire hydrants are located throughout the facility.

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