Pa. Cup Factory Heavily Damaged by Fire

Nov. 04--PITTSTON TWP. -- Firefighters from several departments in Luzerne County battled a blaze that heavily damaged the roof of plastics and paper cup manufacturer Maui Cup in the Grimes Industrial Park on Thursday morning.

The fire broke out just before 8 a.m. at the plant at 20 Commerce Road. No employees were injured, but a Duryea firefighter was taken to a hospital for heat exhaustion, said Pittston Township Assistant Fire Chief Tony Angelella Jr. The cause of the fire is under investigation, he said.

"The roof has sustained some pretty serious damage," Angelella said. "They will need a lot of roof work and they will need structural inspections."

About 300 people work for Maui Cup and about 100 employees who were in the plant at the time of the fire were evacuated, said maintenance manager Kevin Tewksbury.

The plant shut down operations as a result of the severe damage to the roof. Tewksbury could not say how long the plant would remain shut down.

"It's too early to tell right now," Tewksbury said. "It (the roof) is bad. We have structural damage."

The fire left an odor of burning plastic in the air and officials from Luzerne County Emergency Management Agency and the state Department of Environmental Protection checked the air quality as a precaution. Steve Bekanich, the county's emergency management director, said there were no issues.

It took about an hour to control the fire, Angelella said, and firefighters continued to check for hot spots later in the morning. In addition to Pittston Township firefighters, crews from Duryea, Avoca, Pittston, Jenkins Township, Moosic, Old Forge, Dupont, Laflin, Hughestown and Kingston responded.

As firefighters battled the blaze, PPL shut off power to about 115 industrial and residential customers in the area for about an hour Thursday morning for safety reasons, said PPL spokesman Rich Beasley.

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