In a situation that could only happen in Wisconsin, a fire at a dairy plant in Portage on Monday night caused the butter to melt and spill into the old Portage Canal.
The Portage Fire Department says that at 9:15 p.m. Monday, fire crews were sent to Associated Milk Producers, Inc. at 301 Brooks St.
When first responders arrived, they saw a lot of smoke and fire coming from the plant. Heavy smoke and melted butter were the main things that made it hard to put out the fire.
The fire started in a room at the plant where butter was kept, according to the fire department. As the building heated up, the melted sweet cream started to flow through it, making it harder for fire crews to get into the plant.
The fire was put out after several hours. No one was hurt, and authorities are still trying to figure out what started the fire.
The Portage Fire Chief, Troy Haase, said that “99%” of the melted butter stayed in the plant. However, some of the liquid got into the nearby historic Portage Canal.
Haase said that the spill was floating on top of the canal in a space about 30 feet long and 20 feet wide. The fire department said that boom absorbents, which are also used to clean up oil spills, were used by a hazmat team to clean up the mess in the canal.
The AMPI butter mess isn’t nearly as bad as the “butter fire” at the Central Storage & Warehouse Co. in Madison in 1991, but it still has the same effect on the environment. The Environmental Protection Agency says that butter spills can have the same bad effects as petroleum-based oil spills, like bad smells and damage to plants and animals.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has been working for decades to clean up and fix up the Portage Canal, which was finished in 1876.
In a statement released on Thursday, the DNR said that during the fire, about 20 gallons of butter got into the canal. The butter has since been taken out, and the DNR says that the environment has been affected “minimally” so far. Most of the butter that left the plant went to a nearby plant that cleans up wastewater, which has been running normally.
