Firefighters Called to Dumpster Fire Wednesday Evening

Effingham firefighters were called to what turned out to be a dumpster on fire at the ADM facility in the city business park Wednesday evening.

The call came at 6:13pm for a reported fire on the ninth floor of the processing tower located at 1200 McGrath Avenue. On arrival, a supervisor met firefighters of the fire in the dumpster on the fifth floor of the tower. 

Crews found a portable dumpster smoking and a strong sulfur-type smell. Crews utilized their protective gear including air packs to access the area and extinguished the fire with a dry chemical fire extinguisher and removed the dumpster from the building. Crews then ventilated the building and performed air monitoring before releasing the building back to the ADM managers. No one was injured.

Effingham Fire Chief Bob Tutko said the apparent cause of the fire was likely incompatible materials discarded in the dumpster. There was no damage to the property.

Firefighters were on scene for about an hour.