Hamlet Chicken Processing Plant Fire

Hamlet Chicken Processing Plant Fire

The Hamlet food processing plant fire was an industrial fire in Hamlet, North Carolina, at the Imperial Foods processing plant on September 3, 1991, due to a failure in a hydraulic line. Twenty-five were killed and 55 injured in the fire, trapped behind locked fire doors. In 11 years of operation, the plant had never received a safety inspection. Investigators believe a safety inspection might have prevented the disaster.

The Imperial Foods Plant was not a chicken-processing plant, but rather was a food-processing plant. These are terms defined by the U.S. Department of Labor. A chicken-processing plant kills and processes chickens by cutting them up and freezing them. A food-processing plant takes frozen meat, in this case chicken, and cooks it and then refreezes it. The Imperial Foods plant in Hamlet cooked the chicken meat and refroze it. The Imperial plant did not kill and process chickens - a subtle difference that confused the media, legislators and the public.

A federal investigation was launched, which resulted in the owners receiving a 20-year prison sentence. The company received the highest fine in the history of North Carolina. As a result, the state passed several worker safety laws. Survivors and victims' families accused the fire service and city of Hamlet of racism, leading to two monuments to the tragedy being erected. The plant was never reopened.

The fire was North Carolina's worst industrial disaster. Higher fatalities occurred at the 1947 Texas City disaster, the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and the 1860 Pemberton Mill collapse. Some mining disasters have been worse: 53 miners died in 1925 in North Carolina in the Coal Glen mine disaster.