Explosion at Arkansas plant hurts 2, triggers blaze

An explosion at a Calhoun County plant that manufactures flares for the military seriously injured two people Monday evening, authorities said.

The explosion occurred shortly before 7 p.m. at an Esterline Defense Technologies facility in the Highland Industrial Park in south Arkansas, said Ron Nash, the assistant chief for the Camden Fire Department.

The city of Camden is in neighboring Ouachita County, but the city's Fire Department has a contract to respond to fires and other emergencies at Esterline and other defense contractors at the Calhoun County industrial park in East Camden, Nash said.

"There were two people seriously injured," Camden Mayor Marie Trisollini said in a post on her Facebook page on Monday night. "They have been flown to [Arkansas] Children's Hospital burn unit in Little Rock."

Because of medical privacy laws, Trisollini said the names of the injured "have not been made public, but if you pray for them and their families, God will know who you are talking about."

In her Facebook post, Trisollini also said the fire "can't be put out because of its nature, and it has to be allowed to burn out on its own. [Camden firefighters are] stationed there to provide backup until the danger has passed."

Esterline bills itself on its website as "the producer of the largest and most varied line of combustible ordnance and countermeasure products in the world."

Its East Camden facilities are home to the "high-volume production" of infrared decoy flares, which aircraft and helicopters carry and deploy as a defense measure against heat-seeking missiles.

As recently as 2009, the plant was producing between 1.5 and 2 million of the flares per year. Esterline is one of only two companies in the nation that produces this type of military countermeasure.

The plant's space, which totals 175,000 square feet, also is used for research and development, testing and storage, according to the company website.

The blast isn't the first one at Esterline. In June 2009, an explosion that could be heard for miles sent six Esterline employees to the hospital. It occurred in a small outbuilding where chemicals used to make the flares are mixed.

Those employees were treated and released.

Metro on 05/24/2016

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