VIDEO: Emergency staff from several fire departments responded to a fire at Festive Foods in the town of Belmont. Many were at the scene for nearly nine hours.
Festive Foods is a food processing plant that makes frozen pizzas. It’s located south of Amherst, near the Waupaca and Portage county line.
According to Waupaca Fire Department, it started around 9:00 a.m. Employees were working hard to put out a small fire in an air compressor area and they thought they extinguished it. However, it ended up spreading to the roof and a newer part of the building, quickly getting out of control.
“Heavy black smoke flames going through the roof lines so at that point and time we tried getting into the inside of the interior of the building and the heat and smoke was so intense that we had to back out and we had a defensive fire all day long,” explained Fire Chief Jerry Deuman.