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A state investigation into the fire
that destroyed North Star Foods in St. Charles pinpointed where the
blaze started, but does not answer what caused it to ignite in the
first place.


      The April 2009 fire forced a citywide evacuation of the
southeast Minnesota town and left more than 200 people without
jobs. The blaze also is the subject of a $55 million lawsuit
against the manufacturer of the plant's oven burners and a
consultant that recommended them.


      The Winona Daily News reported Sunday that Deputy State Fire
Marshal Steven Wolf's report found the fire was caused accidentally
when heat built up in an oven exhaust stack and ignited
combustibles in the ceiling. But Wolf did not come to a conclusion
as to why that happened.


      North Star has claimed in its lawsuit that burners made by Flynn
Burner Corp. were "defective and unreasonably dangerous" and not
suitable for the plant, despite recommendations from Marshall W.
Nelson & Associates, a Milwaukee-based process heating and control
engineering company, to buy and use them.


      In his report, Wolf concluded that the burners did appear
capable of creating more heat than the exhaust system was designed
to handle, which caused heat to build up, warm the exhaust stack
and ignite "caulking, wood, rubber roof membrane or Styrofoam
insulation."


      North Star's lawsuit alleges that a Marshall Nelson maintenance
technician spent about 30 minutes the day of the fire adjusting gas
and flame levels in the oven. A half hour later, North Star workers
spotted flames above the oven.


      Wolf wrote in his report that the technician's servicing of the
burners was "significant," but he said he couldn't rule out that
the fire was already smoldering when the technician did his work.


      "If the flame was out of adjustment and had been burning for
two hours prior to service work being done, could the service work
have caused a problem, or did the service work remedy a situation
that already caused a problem?" Wolf wrote. He does not answer
this question in his report.


      Attorneys for Flynn and Marshall Nelson argue that North Star
Workers misused the burners.


      "I don't view the fire marshal's report as creating any
problems for our client," said Mike Hutchen, an attorney for Flynn
Burner.


      North Star lawyers say the report was mainly concerned with
ruling out arson as a cause of the fire and that specifics are left
to the parties to determine.


      North Star's lawsuit has been moved from Winona County District
Court to U.S. District Court, with a pretrial conference scheduled
for Sept. 17 in Minneapolis.

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Disasters

A state investigation into the fire
that destroyed North Star Foods in St. Charles pinpoints where the
blaze started but does not answer what caused it to ignite.

State IDs start of St. Charles fire, not cause

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