DUNDEE, Mich. — Residents and travelers near Dundee likely will see and smell smoke for several days as the wreckage from a large fire Thursday continues to smolder.
Seven area fire departments responded to the blaze that began at about 8 p.m. at 4800 Ann Arbor Rd. near M-50. A large, metal-sided building filled with hay and straw bales was entirely destroyed. The site was still smoking heavily today.
“That fire won’t be completely out for days,” said Terry Massingill, assistant fire chief for Dundee Township.
A firefighter on the scene said the huge column of smoke was visible from M-50 and Telegraph Road in Monroe on the eastern side of the county, more than 13 miles away.
Tyler Salada of Shinglehouse, Pa., leased the building as well as another larger, similar structure on the property owned by Homrich Industrial Services for storing hay and straw. His family runs a commercial farming operation, Salada Farms.
He initially told The Blade at the scene Thursday night that the destroyed structure contained about 40,000 bales of varying sizes, but lowered his estimate today to about 30,000.
“We’re still trying to break it down,” Mr. Salada said. He said the market value of the bales was more than $100,000 and the business does have insurance.
A customer had visited the building and removed a number of hay bales, shortly after which Mr. Salada saw smoke. The building was engulfed in flames just minutes later.
“We’ve been doing this a long time and we’ve never had anything like this happen,” Mr. Salada said.
The cause of the fire has not yet been determined, though Mr. Massingill said the department is leaning toward spontaneous combustion as the cause. Firefighters successfully prevented the fire from spreading to wooded area just behind the building, and tore down most of the structure’s outer walls.
“We had some heavy equipment in trying to get [the bales] spread out a little bit so we could get the fire knocked down,” Mr. Massingill said.
Firefighters from Dundee, Ida, London-Maybee-Raisinville, Milan, Monroe, and Summerfield Townships, as well as Tecumseh city departments responded to the scene. Other area departments helped cover those stations in the event of other calls.
No one was injured, though Monroe Community Ambulance service was on standby at the scene while Dundee police assisted with traffic control. Passersby also dropped of cases off bottled water for fire crews.
Mr. Massingill said the last trucks left the scene around 7 a.m. today.
Contact Alexandra Mester at: amester@theblade.com, 419-724-6066, or on Twitter @AlexMesterBlade.
First Published August 5, 2016, 6:15 p.m.
