Eleven area fire departments responded to an agricultural facility fire north of Rochelle on Tuesday morning, Lynn-Scott-Rock Fire Protection District Capt. John Rimstidt said.

LSR Fire was called at 9:48 a.m. for a report of a building/sulfur fire at 936 S. Moore Road. That address is the site of agricultural business Maplehurst Farms. Rimstidt said fire personnel arrived at 9:58 a.m. to a 100-by-200-foot canvas hoop building with smoke showing and all people out of the building.

“When we arrived on scene, there was a considerable amount of white smoke coming out of the building,” Rimstidt said. ”We deployed lines and cut a part of the side of the canvas structure where the fire was. Employees directed us to the fire. With mutual aid, we got water onto where it was smoldering and got it out. A lot of the burning material was pulled with a wheel loader and sprayed down.”

Rimstidt said seven people who were working onsite were transported to area hospitals out of precaution for smoke inhalation and all had been released as of Tuesday afternoon.

The building is used for fertilizer storage, and sulfur was the material that burned inside. There was minimal damage to the building from the fire. Firefighters took precautions with self-contained breathing apparatus and personal protective equipment for the chemical fire, Rimstidt said.

“We were told it was sulfur on fire in the building,” Rimstidt said. “We knew you can’t hit it with a hard stream of water or else it would react. We had to hit it with foam or a light mist of water. We had to be careful. No one was in there in the smoke without gear and air.”

Responding fire companies at the second-alarm fire included LSR, Monroe Township, Stillman, Ogle-Lee, Rochelle, Blackhawk, Oregon and Byron. Ambulances from Sycamore, Kirkland and Genoa-Kingston were utilized. Ogle County Emergency Management was on site providing hazardous material guidance and the Ogle County Sheriff’s Office provided traffic control.

“It’s unbelievable the support that [the mutual-aid box alarm system] provides,” Rimstidt said. “We had more than enough people and equipment. That can be an issue at that time of day. I can’t stress enough the importance of mutual aid and manpower. We could rotate people in and out. Especially when it’s a hazardous situation like this. We had plenty of water. We probably only used about 1,000 gallons. That’s really a good thing, because it cuts down on runoff.”

Rimstidt said the cause of the fire is under investigation, but is considered to be accidental. The dollar amount of damage is undetermined. The only loss was the material that burned and minimal damage to the structure, he said. The last emergency unit cleared the scene at 11:40 a.m.