Insight FS employees and Cobb-Eden fire district volunteers pose in front of an Insight FS tank. Photo by Insight FS Senior Marketing Specialist, Katie Oehm.
It’s the call a general manager never wants to receive – the call that says a chem shed is on fire. That was the case on January 12th of this year for General Manager Ben Huber at Insight FS. Despite the extreme cold that day, by the time HUB Manager Larry Campbell made it to the site in Cobb, Wisconsin, the chem shed was engulfed in flames.
When the fire department and emergency officials arrived, they knew not to spray water on the burning shed. Why? Years ago, Insight had forged a partnership with their local fire department and emergency medical services (EMS) officials in Cobb that focused on the safe handling of hazardous materials during emergencies.
Warehouse/Delivery Specialist Eric Tranberg, Plant/Location Manager Casey Spensley, and EHSI Manager Joe Sikora had spent years training local emergency response officials to handle potential emergencies with crop protection products, with employees, with anhydrous ammonia and other fuels, but also learning the site layouts, what’s under each roof, as well as the personal protective equipment necessary during each scenario.
During these trainings, they also had frank conversations about different situations that could unfold and the safest ways to handle them. Huber said this proactive approach helped minimize the destructive impact of the January fire.
“Because of the partnership with local fire and EMS, they knew before they arrived that it was the chem shed and that they shouldn’t apply water. And that was because of our prior training and communication,” Huber said.
Huber said the emergency did reveal some shortcomings in their plans. “We needed to digitize some of our response plans,” he said. “When you work with 17 sets of fire departments, we realized we should move all the plans to a single digital location.”
Huber said that January day was very intense but thanks to diligent training in the years prior, nobody got hurt. He hopes this real-life example from Insight FS will inspire other locations to start new relationships or strengthen existing ones with their local fire department and EMS officials.
Insight FS employees and Cobb-Eden fire district volunteers pose in front of a fire truck. Photo by Insight FS Senior Marketing Specialist, Katie Oehm.