Crews battle flames at PERC facility

ORRINGTON – Orrington and other fire departments helped put out a fire that took advantage of Penobscot Energy Recovery Corp.’s conveyor system Tuesday afternoon to spread to multiple areas of the waste-to-energy facility.

According to Orrington Fire Chief Scott Stewart, PERC’s River Road facility is equipped to fight its own fires, but in this case crews from Brewer, Bucksport and Holden were called in addition to Orrington because of the size of the fire, which was reported at about 4 p.m.

Stewart said the fire looked impressive at first because it was spread out, but was not the largest his department has had to fight. Nevertheless, it took firefighters about an hour to knock down, and was still smoldering at about 7 p.m. when the Orrington fire crew decided to hand the scene back over to the plant’s personnel.

Stewart said he was unsure whether trash on the conveyor had caught fire, or whether it merely helped spread the flames around the facility. PERC does have a sprinkler system, Stewart said.