ST. GEORGE – Firefighters responded to a fire at Dixie Regional Medical Center Tuesday evening that turned out to be ignited shreddings in a paper-shredder truck.
Fire crews were dispatched around 5:40 p.m. to the loading dock at Dixie Regional where they found a fire and light smoke coming from the back of the shredder truck, St. George Fire Battalion Chief Robert Hooper said.
The firefighters had the driver dump the paper out of the truck so the paper could be sifted through and the fire thoroughly extinguished.
The cause of the fire was not immediately known, Hooper said, though he added it’s not uncommon for people to mistake bins used at offices for paper shredding as regular trash bins and drop something in that shouldn’t be there.
Items like metal binders or used batteries can be thrown in that jam the shredding equipment and ignite a fire, Hooper said, though he reiterated it wasn’t known if that was what happened in this case.
The Fire Department has responded to four or five fires in the back of paper-shredder trucks in recent years, Hooper said.
St. George News reported on a similar incident occurred at Dixie Regional in January 2018 and another in February 2014.
The shredder-truck driver was not harmed in the incident and the fire was contained to the interior of the truck and immediately behind it when he paper was dumped. It had no effect on hospital operations, Hooper said.
Two fire engines and eight firefighters responded to the scene.
This report is based on preliminary information provided by law enforcement or other emergency responders and may not contain the full scope of findings.
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Firefighters from the St. George Fire Department respond to a fire in the back of a paper-shredder truck parked at Dixie Regional Medical Center. No one was injured in the fire and no damage was done to the hospital, St. George, Utah, Feb. 20, 2018 | Photo by Mori Kessler, St. George News
Firefighters from the St. George Fire Department respond to a fire in the back of a paper-shredder truck parked at Dixie Regional Medical Center. No one was injured in the fire and no damage was done to the hospital, St. George, Utah, Feb. 20, 2018 | Photo by Mori Kessler, St. George News
Firefighters from the St. George Fire Department respond to a fire in the back of a paper-shredder truck parked at Dixie Regional Medical Center. No one was injured in the fire and no damage was done to the hospital, St. George, Utah, Feb. 20, 2018 | Photo by Mori Kessler, St. George News
Firefighters from the St. George Fire Department respond to a fire in the back of a paper-shredder truck parked at Dixie Regional Medical Center. No one was injured in the fire and no damage was done to the hospital, St. George, Utah, Feb. 20, 2018 | Photo by Mori Kessler, St. George News
Firefighters from the St. George Fire Department respond to a fire in the back of a paper-shredder truck parked at Dixie Regional Medical Center. No one was injured in the fire and no damage was done to the hospital, St. George, Utah, Feb. 20, 2018 | Photo by Mori Kessler, St. George News
Firefighters from the St. George Fire Department respond to a fire in the back of a paper-shredder truck parked at Dixie Regional Medical Center. No one was injured in the fire and no damage was done to the hospital, St. George, Utah, Feb. 20, 2018 | Photo by Mori Kessler, St. George News
Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2018, all rights reserved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mori Kessler serves as a Senior Reporter for St. George News, having previously contributed as a writer and Interim Editor in 2011-12, and an assistant editor from 2012 to mid-2014. He began writing news as a freelancer in 2009 for Today in Dixie, and joined the writing staff of St. George News in mid-2010. He enjoys photography and won an award for photojournalism from the Society of Professional Journalists for a 2018 photo of a bee inspector removing ferals bees from a Washington City home. He is also a shameless nerd and has a bad sense of direction.
The good news is that the paper documents appear to have already been shredded, before the fire………
It’s a good thing those papers were shredded before they caught because who knows what kind of information could of leaked out to the Russians
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