Reactions
It was clear that the workers had been trapped by locked fire doors, which drew much criticism. A spokesman for the company said that "certain doors" in the plant were locked at "certain times" but did not say which doors. Clark Staten of the Emergency Response and Research Institute in Chicago said in response to the blaze: "If the initial reports can be believed, this is an intolerable set of circumstances that should result in criminal charges being placed against those responsible for having the fire doors locked... Our past experience with fires and fire deaths shows that we must ensure an adequate number of open exits from any occupied building... It's hard to believe, in today's day and age that any business owner or manager would be so insensitive to fire safety as to allow this sort of incident to happen."
The Imperial processing facility in Cumming, Georgia, was shut down for 24 hours immediately after the fire when an inspection by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration found an inoperative sprinkler system, "improper" fire exits and no evacuation plan. The inspection report stated that the plant posed an "imminent danger" to workers because it lacked an automatic fire extinguisher over the cooker similar to the one installed in the Hamlet plant, which failed to prevent the disaster, but did slow the ignition of oil in the vat.
Read more about this topic: Hamlet Chicken Processing Plant Fire
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