By STAN MADDUX

Indiana Correspondent

                ATLANTA, Ind. — A major fire at a large Beck’s Hybrid plant in Indiana is believed to be linked to machinery used to process corn cobs.

                The Friday morning blaze in Atlanta about 45 miles north of Indianapolis was inside a metal fabricated building used to process corn cobs from waste products to a useable bedding product for animals

Jackson Township Fire Chief Jeff Muszar said he’s not sure if the fire ravaged warehouse will be rebuilt or replaced but the integrity of the structure was still intact.

Muszar said the investigation was ongoing but the origin of the fire seemed to be a machine used to crush the cobs or a conveyer transporting the cobs into a grinder.  The fire then spread to a sophisticated dust collection system inside the building.

He said the exact cause of the fire will be left up to the insurance company to try and figure out.

Muszar said it took about three hours to bring the fire under control and several additional hours to get the blaze totally extinguished because of the work involved in reaching flames behind many of the walls. Firefighters from multiple agencies worked the fire.

“Once that fire gets within the walls it just created a lot of problems with getting to all of the hot spots,” said Muszar.                 Muszar said the plant was operating at the time but there were no workers in the vicinity of where the fire started. There was just one minor injury to a firefighter treated at the scene.

Ironically, Muszar said firefighters throughout Hamilton County had a training session at Beck’s Hybrid scheduled later this month to practice for what for actually transpired. ‘’What are the odds of that happening where we have a large fire right before we were going to have a mock disaster,’’ he said.  

                According to Beck’s Hybrid, the company is the largest family-owned retail seed company in the U.S with more than a dozen locations in Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, Iowa, Minnesota and Hawaii.  It’s headquartered in Atlanta where Lawrence Beck purchased an 80 acre farm in 1901.