BATAVIA – The storage building that housed a crematory caught fire while the incinerator was in use at a Batavia cemetery, fire officials said Thursday.
The fire destroyed a steel pole barn that enclosed its crematory, back hoe and other equipment at River Hills Memorial Park, 1650 S. River Lane on Batavia's east side about noon on Thanksgiving Day.
No one was injured and investigators were still trying to determine the cause, Batavia Fire Chief Randall Deicke said. He said he did not know if the crematory's incinerator malfunctioned or had anything to do with the blaze.
"The crematory was in operation, but we don't know (the fire's cause) at this point" Deicke said. "I know there was a foreman here earlier today who was working at the crematory. I don't know if a passerby called it in or he called it in. We're still trying to gather all the facts."
The pole barn was fully engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived, he said. It took about a half hour to put the the fire out.
"There was fire coming out of many of the sides and we did a defensive attack – which means nobody went inside the structure," Deicke said. "We put the fire out from the outside."
Battalion Chief Edward Jancauskas said when their units saw the huge plume of billowing black smoke, they sent out a general alarm to bring in firefighters from Geneva, North Aurora, West Chicago, St. Charles to help put it out and keep it from spreading.
Other buildings nearby were undamaged, such as the cemetery office inside a house converted for business use and a storage shed, he said.
The pole barn was a 50-foot-by-50-foot structure containing the crematory. There is no estimate of damage, but Deicke said the contents would be more valuable than the pole barn.
"The pole barn is erected with a steel frame and it has metal walls going around the outside, it's a metal barn," Deicke said. "It may have a couple of interior walls, but it's basically a metal barn."
Fire and emergency workers shut down Route 25, which is South River Lane, in Batavia through to the edge of North Aurora, as well as the railroad tracks for about two hours.
Cemetery manager Chuck Lentz said he heard the fire call on his personal scanner and got to the cemetery before the firefighters did.
"We'll rebuild and get it back up and running," Lentz said. "It's up to the fire department, whatever they find out happened, we'll go from there."
Even as fire crews were wrapping up to return to their stations about 2 p.m., a plume of smoke was still coming from one of the crematory's two smoke stacks. Deicke said that smoke was not from the fire, but from the crematory, which stays hot for a long time.
This fire is a first for Deicke.
"Have I ever been to a fire in a storage facility? Yes," Deicke said. "Have I ever been to a fire at a crematorium? No, I haven't."
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