About 150 firefighters from Shelton and beyond spent hours bringing an early morning fire at the Latex International factory on River Road under control Thursday.
Three firefighters sustained minor injuries while battling the blaze, but one was hospitalized with a broken shoulder, Shelton Fire Chief Fran Jones said at the scene about 6:45 a.m. as crews performed overhaul work with the smell of burnt rubber lingering in the air.
A cause has not been determined.
Firefighters were sent to the complex — at 510 River Road — about 12:50 a.m., Jones said.
First responders arrived minutes later to see smoke pouring out of the building, Jones said.
The blaze began in a large industrial drying machine about 20 by 200 feet in the building’s basement, he said.
“It extended to the ductwork and to a machine on the first floor, and through conveyor belts,” Jones said. “So we had fire on the first floor and the basement, and extension through the ventilation system up to the roof.”
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Firefighters from all four of Shelton’s volunteer fire companies responded, as did crews from Derby, Ansonia, Stratford, and Orange.
Firefighters from other towns covered local fire stations as well, and mutliple ambulances and police officers also responded to the blaze.
Readers on Facebook said the odor from the blaze was noticeable throughout the area.
Firefighters stretched three hose lines into the building to attack the blaze in combination with sprinklers inside.
But the flames were initially too intense, Jones said.
“We were throwing about 1,000 gallons a minute at it,” he said. “It overran the fire suppression efforts.”
Crews pulled back and poured water on the fire from tower trucks, he said, and were then able to knock it down.
“We were fortunate to gain control of it,” the chief said.
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The building suffered significant fire and smoke damage, Jones said.
Officials from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection were also on scene Thursday morning.
Dwayne Gardner, a DEEP spokesman, said about noon that that fire was contained within the main factory building, which is separate from another building on the site where the company stored chemicals.
It did not appear that any environmental contaminants had been released during the blaze, Gardner said.
But since about three feet of water needed to be pumped out of the building’s basement, DEEP crews would stand by on scene to supervise a contractor performing that work.
DEEP put containment booms in the nearby Housatonic River as a precaution, he said, but “it didn’t appear to us that any water (from the factory) had gotten into the river.”
Shelton Fire Marshal James Tortora said at the scene about 7 a.m. he wouldn’t be able to begin determining the cause and origin of the blaze until the water and smoke are cleared from the building.
“The fire was reported to be in a dryer, so right now I’m assuming something happened in there, we’ll just have to verify it,” he said.
The company’s CEO, Dave Fisher, said at the scene that about 30 employees were in the building at the time. None were injured.
He said the dryer where the fire began dries finished products after they are washed as part of the production process.
The dryer runs the full length of the sprawling factory building, Fisher said.
River Road was closed in the area of the factory for hours early Thursday but was reopened to traffic about 8 a.m.
The fire comes 13 years after the company’s previous factory, on West Main Street in Ansonia, was leveled by a massive blaze. Click here to view a YouTube video of that intense fire.
The company has also been hit with more recent troubles.
Its former CEO and another executive were sent to federal prison in 2012 after pleading guilty to looting millions of dollars from the business.
In addition, the company filed for bankruptcy protection in federal court this month.
[View the story “Latex Foam Fire” on Storify]