Belton firefighters, assisted by firemen from all over Bell County, were so frantic to stop the inferno at Indeco that by 8 p.m. on Wednesday they had nearly depleted the city’s water system.
“The water got really, really desperate,” said Belton Mayor Jim Covington. “There for a while, we were down to a foot of water in the towers.”
Each of the two towers holds more than a million gallons of water. A foot of water is equal to about 50,000 gallons.
“If we had a fire anyplace else in town last night, we would not have been able to fight it,” said Les Hallbauer, Belton’s public works director.
By 1:30 p.m. on Thursday both towers were more than half full, Hallbauer said. By the evening tank levels were back to normal.
At the Indeco site firefighters continued to put out hotspots all day, but piles of sand placed in the gutter on Birdwell Street blocked the runoff from entering Belton’s wastewater system.
An environmental cleanup company, TAS Environmental, sucked the water into 200,000-gallon tanks for storage until it could be tested and cleared for discharge into the city wastewater system, or if it is contaminated, some other place.
By late afternoon the company was filling its fourth of 10 tanks at the site.
The frenzied pace of trying to save the building on Wednesday was replaced by the methodical pace of investigating why the fire was so prolonged and destructive.
An Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent, who was not available for comment, appeared to play a key role in the investigation. Belton Fire Chief Roy Harmon said the agent was invited to help investigate because of his experience and because of “alleged explosions” heard by people around the fire.
A deputy state fire marshal from Austin, Mike Rodriguez, who specializes in fire suppression systems, was on site investigating the sprinkler system in one of the buildings and trying to determine why it wasn’t successful in suppressing the fire.
He said he was still gathering facts on who manufactured and installed the sprinkler system - as well as who inspected the system - and had not come to any conclusions yet.
Harmon said he did not believe the sprinkler system was working in the plant when firefighters arrived, but the owner of the business, Lee Mays, was skeptical about that on Wednesday and said the sprinklers weren’t effective because of water pressure problems.
Harmon did say that everything so far in the investigation indicates the fire was accidental.
The family and workers at the plant who were accessible to the media on Wednesday spoke only to insurance adjusters on Thursday. A handful of employees walked in and out of the only building left standing on the complex, a building that houses computer servers and the human resource department.
The company issued a statement that said its nerve center was still intact and that power had been restored to the building. Electricity was cut on the block as a safety measure during the fire.
A new sign was attached to a railing on the building that said, “no soliciting.”
A group of manufacturing workers gathered at 9 a.m. near a warehouse entrance but left within an hour.
Harmon said that officials from the Environmental Protection Agency tested the air quality on Wednesday and found the levels to be safe, and that officials from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality tested the water runoff and found it not to be hazardous.
Scott & White EMS covered all EMS calls in Belton overnight on Wednesday, Harmon said.
Birdwell Street was reopened and a procession of spectators drove by to see the destruction.
One of the dangers cities encounter fighting large fires is that when hoses are taken off fire hydrants the water system can become charged with too much pressure and areas of weak or cracked pipe can burst, City Manager Sam Listi said.
The water pressure got so low fighting Wednesday’s fire that the city didn’t have to worry about that consequence, Hallbauer said.
“We called businesses and told them to turn the yard sprinklers off, and we didn’t have anybody complain,” Covington said. “We just had to have everybody pull together. There is no city that pulls together like Belton, Texas.”
npromer@temple-telegram.com
