Excessive heat from a generator exhaust pipe in the Torrington wastewater treatment plant’s administrative building caused material around it to smolder Monday.
Harwinton and Torrington firefighters responded to the smoke conditions at 5:50 p.m. above the drop ceiling in the building.
“Where the pipe goes through the roof, it got hot enough to cause material around it to smolder. There were never any flames, just smoke,” Harwinton Westside Fire Chief Scott Kellogg.
The Torrington facility, which is on Bogue Road in Harwinton, had been on generator power since 4 p.m., Kellogg said.
Torrington public works Director Ray Drew said the generator had been turned on as part of the ISO-New England load shed program, which calls on generators to come online to reduce the load on the electrical grid during high-demand periods.