GREENVILLE, Mich. — There was an explosion inside the Dicastal North America factory on Friday— seriously injuring one employee, and unnerving a community used to accidents happening at the facility.
It happened around 9:45 p.m. on Friday, heard and felt for miles.
One Dicastal employee was taken to a nearby hospital with severe burns.
Greenville DPS Sgt. Steve DeWitt told FOX 17 that the explosion happened in the foundry portion of the facility, with the ceiling and roof areas breaking out in flames.
"This is where they take large blocks of solid aluminum or magnesium, they melt it down in blast furnaces, and then they use that liquid metal for the rest of the process," he said on scene on Friday.
Dicastal manufactures aluminum alloy wheels for the auto industry, according to its website.
Firefighters on scene had to use "dry chemicals" to extinguish the fire, as magnesium will react when hit with water.
"We were just sitting in the dining room, playing cards, and all a sudden... we heard this loud explosion. Scared the living daylights out of us,” a man named Pete, who lives just a few hundred feet from the factory, told FOX 17 on Monday.
“My first thoughts were, maybe a meteorite hit, a jet crashed... did something fall on the house?”
His son saw a fireball emanating from the Dicastal facility visible from their home.
“As soon as he said he saw the flame, I figured it had to be Dicastal again.”
A fire broke out at the manufacturer in September 2019, and then again a month later in October 2019.
There was another fire at the plant in July 2020.
The facility was also raided by the FBI in July of 2022. Details of that search remain sealed as of March 2023.
