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wiredInUSA - December 2014
23
23
ir I
-December 2014
Fire wire
damage
A fire at Bekaert’s Rome, Georgia, plant
on 19
th
November caused extensive
damage. The fire appeared to have
started in a hood on a bead wire line in
the north-central part of the plant. It then
spread into the ceiling, said Jeff Oliver,
human resources manager of the plant,
but no onewas injured. “We got everyone
out,” Oliver said. “Everyone’s accounted
for.”
Employees at the plant were sent home
at the time of the fire, and plant personnel
will stay in contact with the 225 or so
employees to advise them of their job
status. “We’ll let everybody know what’s
going to happen,” said production
manager Robert Winkle.
The plant makes bead wire used in the
manufacturing of tires and rubber hoses.
A spokesman explained that lubricant
that helps draw thebeadwire through the
system burns off in the lead bath. “When
you’ve got a lead bath and it gets in the
tube, every once in a while it’ll flame up
in the tube, but it has never gotten like
that,” he said.
Rex Rains, president of CWA/IUE local
83190, which represents 175 of the hourly
employees at Bekaert, said the company
was already in the preliminary stages of
a $29 million upgrade and estimated the
Rome plant already had taken delivery
on as much as $7 million worth of new
equipment. “I don’t think any of that was
damaged. It was all on the other side of
the plant. I think it was secured.”
INDEX