there is a huge pallet manufacturing company about 20 miles south of Lafayette on US 52 at the intersection with IN 28. It has a fifteen or twenty acre site with a couple of pole buildings and a stockpile of God only knows how many pallets stacked up five stories high and maybe an acre or two in area. There are also several mountains of sawdust about.
I always wondered what kept the sawdust from spontaniously combusting.
I drive by it a couple of times a month or so and every time I go by I say to myself, "why hasn't that burned yet?"
So over the weekend it caught fire. The blaze was so huge that all the little fire departments, volunteer, sent in their trucks to fight it. Our department in Lafayette I hear even sent down a command vehicle and directed the fight. They fought it all night to contain it. It closed down both roads.
I also always wondered at the huge stack of inventory on hand.
Now of course, unless arson is proved, they will get retail for all the burned product.
It'll be interesting to see how it turns out.
I think the paper said it was a $5 mil gross business per year....how many pallets is that?