GUILDERLAND — A fire has been smoldering in a grain silo in Guilderland Center since Monday. Though it has caused no injuries and little damage, as of Wednesday night, firefighters were unable to extinguish it.

According to Chief Josh Lare of the Guilderland Center Fire Department, firefighters were called Monday afternoon to Building 16 in the Northeastern Industrial Park with a report of strange odors. The 215-foot-tall building houses about three dozen silos containing various grain products used to make animal feed.

While the building is located within the boundaries of the industrial park, it is not owned by the Galesi Corporation, which owns the park, according to David Buicko, chief operating officer of the park. The building is owned by United Cooperative Farmers Inc.

The firefighters weren’t worried about the grain products, but the grain dust is explosive, Lare said.

When they arrived at the silo, Lare said, firefighters smelled something burning and saw a small amount of smoke. They discovered a smoldering fire in a bin on the fifth floor of the building. At the fifth floor, 150 feet up, the silos each empty into bins of eight-inch-thick concrete.

This particular bin was split in half by a steel plate and the fire was only in one half, Lare said.

The fire department attempted to stop the fire by venting the building and emptying the bin, but it caused an explosion, damaging a steel door and lid cover on the fifth floor.

No firefighters were hurt. The two closest to the explosion were sent to the hospital for evaluation, Lare said, but just as a precaution.

After the explosion, the Guilderland Center Fire Department removed itself from the building Monday night and decided to call for help from Albany County, the state, and other local departments. Several reconnaissance missions later, using thermal scanners, firefighters discovered two hot spots in the grain: one on the third floor of the silo and another in the fifth floor bin, on the other side from where the earlier explosion occured.

Firefighters then contacted several people in the silo and grain industry for advice.
"They basically said to put water in there and take the product out, so that’s exactly what we did," Lare said.

As of a press conference at the Guilderland Center Fire Department late Wednesday afternoon, firefighters were still working on the problem.
"We still have some hot spots," Lare said. "Now we have a clog somewhere."

Lare wouldn’t guess when the fire would be completely out.
The danger of explosion remains, Lare said, but, "That has been the danger every year for the past 30 years people have been working there."

The cause of the fire was probably spontaneous combustion in the compressed grain, Lare said.

The closest building to the silo, a garage, has been evacuated, Lare said, but the fire isn’t really a threat to other buildings nearby.
"This building pretty much is isolated by itself," he said.

The Guilderland Center Fire Department has trained for fires like this, but this is the first time it has fought a real one.
"It has probably been the most difficult thing [the department has done]," Lare said.

Two weeks ago, on the third story of the same building, a machine caught fire and was put out by the Guilderland Center Fire Department. Timothy McIntyre, and East Berne fireman who volunteers days for the the Altamont Fire Department, broke his leg when a woman driving a tractor trailer drove over a hose he was hooking to a hydrant. The hose wrapped around the wheel of the truck and McIntyre’s leg, he said, flipping him upside down and slamming him into the truck.