Marcal Paper Plant (Elmwood Pk, NJ) burns down in wind driven fire

I usually do not write about structure fires, but due to the wind driven nature of the fire, I am making an exception in writing about the loss of the iconic Marcal Paper Plant in Elmwood Park (Bergen County), New Jersey. If any of you have ever driven on Interstate 80 in New Jersey, you may have passed the Marcal plant with it's cool red lighted sign.

Image from Google Earth Pro, street view (August 2018)

I believe that the fire started sometime on January 29th. Because fires were somewhat common at Marcal because of the highly combustable paper, Marcal had an in-house group of firefighters. At some point they called for mutual aid from the nearby towns.  The fire continued into January 30th. Then everything changed when a wind driven snow squall hit sometime between 3:25 PM and 3:50 PM.


Direct link to video from Tommy Gee Videos

I am familiar with the snow squall as it hit my town about an hour before, the winds kicked up with white out conditions. The snow squall only lasted about 10 or 15 minutes but it ushered in an arctic cold front with sustained winds of 20 to 25 mph and gusts up to 50 mph. I wanted to give you an idea of the winds that afternoon, so I called up the National Weather Service at Upton NY whose forecast area includes Bergen County. One of their Meteorologists gave me wind data for Teterboro Airport (KTEB) which is located about 5 miles southeast of the Marcal Plant. While not wind data for Elmwood Park, this wind data will give you an idea of the type of winds the firefighters were dealing with. Any errors in the data are mine.

Note the uptick in the winds at 3:51 PM, shortly after the snow squall passed through. For more information about the conditions the firefighters were facing, by this time it was a 10-alarm fire, read this NJ dot com article (with photos). Elmwood Park Fire Chief, Michael Sulick told NJ Advance Media (for NJ dot come) what happened when the squall hit:

Firefighters in Elmwood Park felt they were making progress against the fire in “Building 41” of the sprawling Marcal Paper campus, pushing back the flames with four lines, like they had done so many times over the decades.

Then, from the west, the squall hit, unleashing fierce winds that pushed the fire towards the sky. Within minutes, the 86-year-old plant, packed with combustibles, erupted into a raging inferno that continued to burn nearly a day later. 

“The roof caught fire, we heard cracking, we automatically pulled everyone out at that point,” Elmwood Park Fire Chief Michael Sulick said. “It just went downhill from that point on.”

The plant was burned to the ground. No firefighters were injured, and nearby residents were evacuated. I am not sure about damage to nearby residences.

When I lived in northeastern New Jersey almost 20 years ago, I frequently drove on that section of Route 80. The Marcal paper plant was an old friend, and I remembered their paper products. Five hundred people employed at Marcal are without jobs, Elmwood Park is grieving the loss of Marcal. I am saddened by the loss of the Marcal Plant, but I am very glad that no lives were lost and that most of the destruction appears to have been contained to the Marcal Plant complex.

Kudos to all the fire companies that responded, some of whom may have been volunteers.


Direct link to video on youtube from NJ dot com