ARABI, La. — The burn marks on a sugar silo at the Domino Sugar refinery are the only obvious signs of the scare that happened Thursday afternoon.
Less obvious right now is why it happened.
“We have investigators that are there right now trying to determine the cause,” said St. Bernard Parish Fire Chief Thomas Stone.
He said investigators aren't ruling out anything -- with one exception.
“We're confident it wasn't intentionally set. It's an accidental fire,” he said.
One possible culprit for the three-alarm fire: lightning from storms that passed by during the afternoon. No one was injured.
Sugar is big business in the United States. Louisiana produces the second largest amount of sugar in all of the country, and a lot of that sugar is produced at the Domino plant in Arabi.
In a statement, American Sugar Refining, Domino's owner, said the loss of any sugar is minimal "because the majority of the refinery's products are shipped to customers or outside warehouses as they are produced."
A spokesman for the American Sugar Alliance, a trade association, says that even if there had been a major loss of sugar, there are policies in place that allow for easy importing to keep the supply chain moving.
Sugar production as we know it today began in Louisiana. "And particularly here in St. Bernard,” said St. Bernard Parish historian Bill Hyland.
He said any major damage to the plant would have major impacts on the parish, so he’s grateful it wasn’t bad.
“Since 1910, the American Sugar Refinery, now Domino Sugar, has been a key element in the foundation of our economy,” Hyland said. “So it's vital to our future, it's vital to our present and it's been vital in our history.”
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