Furnace Fire Forces 225 to Evacuate SKF Plant

Furnace Fire Forces 225 to Evacuate SKF Plant Two-hundred-twenty-five employees of SKF on McEver Road safely evacuated the huge ball-bearing manufacturing plant Tuesday afternoon following a furnace fire. "They have done their drills, they know how to evacuate a building ," says Hall County Fire Marshall Scott Cagle. " Once we got there , a liaison met with us, told us where the fire was, what was on fire, and we were able to take care of the problem very quickly." The problem furnace was used to treat and heat ball-bearings up to sixteen hundred degrees. "The fire was controlled by the sprinkler system that went off and held the fire until we got there," says Cagle. "There is no dollar amount loss yet on the furnace itself , " he adds, "the replacement value is around one-million dollars, but the insurance company is going to have to look at it to see if it's a total loss or not."