Johnson Products temporarily stops production to assess fire hazards

The Columbia Fire Department met with Johnson Products representatives, including the executive vice president, on Tuesday to discuss the possible cause behind four fires at the Columbia insulation plant in less than three months.

Brad Fraizer, Assistant Fire Chief, said the department was able to determine the fires started in two machines that convert recycled paper into insulation.

“There are a lot of steps in the process of each machine, so we suspect there’s probably something faulty within the machine,” he said. “Just some maintenance issues that need to be looked at and we’re pretty confident they’re going to have those taken care of in short order.”

Johnson Products has 60 days to fix the faulty equipment. The company has voluntarily stopped operations at the Columbia facility until the machines are working properly.

Fraizer said the building has no fire code violations and has a working sprinkler system. He said it’s unusual when there’s more than one fire at the same place in a short period of time.

“We look at every fire individually because we want to rule out all intentional causes and all accidental causes as well,” he said. “We’re confident in this case these were unintentional mechanical failures.”

The fire department will meet with company representatives again and reevaluate the machines once the 60 days have expired.

ABC 17 News tried reaching out to Johnson Products in Columbia, but was told all comment had to be made through its corporate office in Virginia.