A massive fire that took six hours to control devastated a 30,000 square foot lubricants warehouse at R.D. Holder Oil Co. in Springfield, Ohio, April 19.
The Pike Township Fire Department first received a call at 10:41 a.m. on Thursday about a fuel truck on fire at R.D. Holder Oil, said Jacob King, fire chief for Wright Patterson Air Force Base, whose firefighters responded to the incident. In all, about 85 firefighters from 35 fire departments, along with officials from 50 agencies were on the scene to extinguish the four-alarm fire, King said.
Upon arrival they found the fuel truck fully involved in fire, and the transfer nozzle from that fuel truck to another tank was spraying fuel and fire all over the place, King told Lube Report. We already had the fire extending into the building upon arrival. He said the fire then progressed into the warehouses holding areas where lubricants were stored, spreading rapidly from there to the entire facility.
The companys entire complex at the site did go down as a result of the fire, he said. King said investigators had not yet determined a damages estimate in terms of dollars.
The Ohio State Fire Marshal ruled the fire accidental. State Fire Marshal investigators say a spark from static electricity likely ignited liquid fuel, the agency said on its Twitter page.
According to an R.D. Holder statement yesterday, the warehouse only housed lubricants and served the companys headquarters. The company said no employees were injured, and the stock of lubricants lost in the incident is being replaced. R.D. Holder Oils headquarters is now temporarily located in Bellefontaine, Ohio.
We received a new supply of (oil and) lubricants on Saturday to our Bellefontaine warehouse, said Dwight Kent, vice president of operations for R.D. Holder Oil. This helps ensure all of our customers will have what they need to run their business. We will start lube deliveries to our customers today, and deliveries will continue with normal lead times.
A Hazmat team worked to protect a section of Donnels Creek that runs behind the site. We dug a heavily extensive damming system and underflow dam to try to contain the products since most of those products obviously float on water, King explained. We were able to contain the product within about half a mile of the company in the creek.
Ohio EPA spokeswoman Heather Lauer confirmed contractor Veolia Environmental Services had removed an estimated 200 to 300 gallons of oil product from the nearby creek over the weekend. The tanks were on concrete pads, and the area around the facility was diked, Lauer told Lube Report. Were not seeing anything that points to a long term environmental impact.
According to its web site, R.D. Holder Oil is a BP Castrol distributor and has supplied fuels and lubes to Ohio and Northern Kentucky customers since 1986. In addition to the Springfield, Ohio, location, it has other facilities in Ohio in Bellefontaine, Lancaster, Washington Courthouse and Lima.