By Kim McDarison 

City of Whitewater officials held a press briefing Monday with regard to a more than five alarm fire which broke out at a recycling center Sunday night. 

According to information shared by Whitewater Assistant Fire Chief Joe Uselding during a nearly 17-minute news briefing, the Whitewater Fire and EMS Department responded to a report of smoke and flames emanating from a recycling building on a property owned by John’s Disposal, 107 County Highway U, Whitewater, at approximately 9:54 p.m. 

The briefing was conducted by Uselding and Whitewater City Manager John Weidl, who used his opening remarks to thank “everyone who was a part of responding to the incident at John’s Disposal.” 

Weidl described the fire as “very large,” noting that more than 30 agencies from the area and surrounding counties responded to the scene. 

Weidl said Uselding was among firefighters responding to the incident. 

Reading from a prepared statement, Uselding said that upon their arrival, firefighters found heavy smoke and flames coming from a sorting and recycling building. 

Uselding said the fire was quickly upgraded to a five-alarm fire, later surpassing that status due to cold conditions, the size of the incident and the need for additional water. 

“Crews set up multiple master streams to protect an adjacent building and other mobile equipment on site,” Uselding said, adding that firefighters were assisted by John’s Disposal employees who helped move equipment away from the compromised structure, allowing emergency crews more room to operate. 

According to Uselding, the affected building was used to house sorting equipment for recycling and recycling product. 

As of Monday, he said, “a significant amount of recycling materials continue to smolder … as crews remain on scene conducting overhaul and dousing hot spots.” 

The assistant chief noted that there is no danger to the public and that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources continues to monitor water runoff from the incident. He said firefighting crews will continue to monitor the situation for the next few days. 

The cause of the fire remains under investigation, he said. 

Uselding estimated the value of the building and its contents as “likely in the millions of dollars.” 

Responding to questions from reporters, Uselding said efforts to monitor hot spots developing at the scene would continue “potentially for a couple more days.”  

He described the building that was involved in the fire as “structurally compromised,” and with a “partial collapse.” 

“We cannot enter the building safely at this point to get to all the hot spots that are in it. At this point we’re just going to monitor it and respond as required to douse any hot spots,” Uselding said. 

The assistant chief told reporters that there remained a large amount of recycling materials outside of the building.  

“Some of the John’s Disposal staff are able to move product around to pools of water that remain on scene, however as the temperatures fluctuate, those pools of water may freeze, and may not be available for them to do that, so we may need to go back out there in order to douse any hot spots that come up through the product,” he said.  

Uselding described the building damaged by fire as an approximately 20,000-square-foot, four-sided structure, which housed “quite a bit of equipment,” including such items as a conveyor unit and other sorting units. 

Additionally, he said, “It is also on multiple levels, so, where we’re working with the recyclable materials, it’s on a lower level than where the building is, and it’s also at a little bit of a slope, moving up, so that also creates a little bit of an issue for us setting up equipment and getting around the various sides of the structure.” 

Uselding estimated the size of the John’s Disposal property at approximately 15 acres. He described the building as residing on the southwest side of the property, noting that when firefighters arrived, a priority was to protect a second building, situated to the west of the burning structure. 

Firefighters were successful in protecting that structure, he said, adding that some damage may have been sustained by nearby mobile units, such as trailers, describing damage to those units as likely heat-related. 

While fighting the fire, Uselding described a process used to transport water.  

“There is no water supply on the John’s Disposal property other than drinking water. So, we didn’t have the water that we required to fight that incident,” he said. 

LS Power in Whitewater is situated to the west of the John’s Disposal property, he said, noting that firefighters were able to tap the adjacent property as a water source. Some 15 tenders were requested through mutual aid, Uselding said, adding: “They were running a water shuttle, basically circling the incident, dropping water. Engines would then draft that water and pump it up to the incident.” 

Other issues confronting firefighters Sunday night included cold temperatures, which affected both people and equipment, he said. 

“Plus the scope of the incident, and managing something that large, can be very, very difficult. It takes a lot of people, a lot of leadership involved, to make sure that we’re organizing it properly, and that we are making sure that crews are effectively released when they are no longer needed — not remaining on scene and waiting to be released. We want to get them back to their agencies as quickly as possible because they might have an incident as well, and if they are not there for that incident that also affects their response,” Uselding said. 

He said the “bulk” of the fire was “knocked down” on Sunday by 2 or 3 a.m.  

While smoke from the fire was a concern for firefighters, he said most of it moved north over land which he described  as “a lot of empty farmland.” 

Uselding reported that no one was injured during the event, adding that there were no workers at the plant when the fire broke out. 

While a cause of the fire remains unknown, Uselding said: “We don’t have any inclination that it’s suspicious in nature.” 

He stated that County Highway U opened to traffic Monday. The highway was closed during the incident to accommodate the equipment that was used to fight the fire and keep an open pathway so water could arrive at the scene. 

In addition, he said, water used to fight the fire spilled on the roadway, causing slick spots. The Jefferson County Highway Department and the Whitewater Streets Department arrived at the scene to apply salt to the roadway.  

Uselding said the owners of the property arrived at the scene “fairly quickly” after the incident began, and were able to assist firefighters by moving trucks and equipment away from the building. 

“We have not heard anything as far as what their plans are right now to rebuild,” Uselding said.