FREMONT, Neb. (AP) — Two girls and an adult who were inside a Nebraska biofuels plant when an explosion tore through the facility were confirmed dead, officials said Wednesday. More than a day after the blast, fire crews were still battling smoldering flames and say they can't safely enter the plant's unstable wreckage.
The children had been waiting for the employee at Horizon Biofuels to finish work so they could go to a doctor’s appointment when the explosion shook the town at around noon Tuesday, Fremont Mayor Joey Spellerberg said.
He wasn’t sure of their exact ages but said both were under age 12. Authorities did not provide their names or details on how the three were related.
The plant makes animal bedding and wood pellets for heating and smoking food, using tons of wood waste. Spellerberg said authorities believe the blast was likely a wood dust explosion in the plant's tall elevator tower.
“That’s really the only thing that makes sense,” Spellerberg said. He said Horizon Biofuels is cooperating “as far as I know.”
The company did not immediately respond to phone calls seeking comment.
The top of the elevator tower was torn apart, exposing a mangled concrete-and-rebar core. Metal siding on the building below was left crumpled and charred, while wisps of white smoke drifted into the air Wednesday despite rain overnight.
Spellerberg said fire crews were evaluating whether the whole facility might collapse, making it difficult to get inside as they battle the fire.
“It’s going to be very slow,” said Carl Nielsen of the city’s volunteer fire department. He said authorities do not have a timeline for when they expect the bodies to be recovered.
“My heart hurts,” Spellerberg told reporters. “It’s a tragedy. We pray for all the families involved.”
The company has 10 employees, according to the Nebraska Manufacturing Extension Partnership.
A 2014 fire at the building had damaged the electrical system but left the structure intact, according to reporting by the Fremont Tribune. Significant accumulations of wood dust particles can be a fire and explosion hazard, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Taylor Kirklin, who lives about a half mile (0.8 kilometers) from the building, said her whole house shook from the explosion, which was so loud she thought someone had crashed a car into her family’s dog kennel business on the property.
“We were really unsure when the explosion happened which plant it was, because there are so many in that area,” she said. The facility is surrounded by other manufacturing and food processing plants.
Fremont, a city of about 27,000 and the sixth-largest in Nebraska, is 32 miles (52 kilometers) northwest of Omaha.
Emily Anderson, who lives just blocks from the plant, said she heard “one really big boom” before police cars flooded in.
“There were just huge plumes of very, very black smoke,” Anderson said. “It was scary.”
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