Wood-chip fire to continue for days in Hot Spring County

More than a week after a fire broke out at a solid waste facility in Hot Spring County, hundreds of tons of wood chips are expected to continue burning for days, authorities said.

Responders from nine county fire departments fought the blaze when it broke out the morning of April 14 at the Jones Mill Industrial Park waste facility, according to Rockport Fire Chief Damon Dyer. The chief said that after the structure became unsound, firefighters pulled back to allow the flames to burn out.

“I’m not going to be the first guy in this county that loses a firefighter because I put him in something bad,” Dyer said.

The facility contained a 400- to 500-ton pile of slow-burning wood chips, and authorities said the fire will likely continue through the week.

“It’s not going anywhere,” Dyer said. “We’ve got a 24-hour watch on it.”

Officials estimated that responders poured about 1.47 million gallons of water on the blaze over a seven-hour period.

Firefighters managed to save the waste management facility’s big equipment, authorities said. According to Dyer, the facility will be able to resume operation once it gets set up in several nearby structures.

As for the scrap wood that would normally be converted into chips at the facility, the solid waste authority has placed out bins that will carry the scraps straight to the landfill rather than grind them into dust, Dyer said.

“It’s just a little bit more hauling, is all it is,” he said.