Firefighters battled a smoldering fire for nearly five hours at Elmet Technologies at 1560 Lisbon St. Monday afternoon before employing a duct-taped pole to reach burning material in a duct and extinguish it.
At 4:19 p.m., the department responded to reports of heavy smoke blowing out from a duct near the top of the building. Firefighters identified a burning buildup of tungsten oxide power within a T-section of external duct work as the source, said Paul Ouellette, fire investigator for the Lewiston Fire Department.
The area could not be directly accessed because it was blocked by a hydrogen gas furnace. Ladder 1 was deployed and firefighters used a 4-foot shovel with a hook duct taped to a pike pole to reach into the duct and pull the smoldering debris out and onto the ground below, where it was extinguished.