Biomass One executives apologize to neighbors

White City, Ore., — Biomass One executives are apologizing to their neighbors tonight, two days after a fire at their White City plant.

And they’re vowing to take steps to prevent anything like it from happening again.

The fire two days ago here at Biomass One started in a 60 ton wood waste pile.

Though it was spotted within 30 seconds, it was too late to stop the spread to Western Valley Cutstock.

“I’m not sure how you say sorry to the people not working.”

But Biomass One is trying.

“Our regret is extraordinary, and our efforts to ensure that this does not happen again will be extraordinary to match the consequence of this event.” said Managing Partner Greg Blair.

On Sunday night a 60 ton wood waste pile at Biomass One’s White City facility caught on fire.

Within two minutes crews were working to put it out, but it was too late for their next door neighbors Western Valley Cutstock.

“The damage is rather extensive, we have a lot of damage to our offices, it’s a complete loss, all of our computer equipment is lost.” said CFO Gary Trapp.

Trapp says this isn’t the first time something like this has happened.

But Biomass One Managing Partner Greg Blair says it’s 4 years since they’ve had a big fire.

But the steps they took with fire marshals to improve safety then, wasn’t enough.

“Clearly the actions we took 4 years ago were good for 4 years but not for good and that to me is unacceptable.” said Blair.

Now they are looking at new changes to ensure it never happens again.

“We are going to redouble our efforts we are gonna sit down with the fire marshal and come up with a new more aggressive plan which will probably involve reducing the pile height.” said Blair.

Biomass One does not yet have a timeline for when it will make changes to the safety procedures, but plan to soon.

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