True Life Tuesday: The Wisconsin Butter Fire

This is an incident that could have been much worse that it was. In the 1980s and 1990s America's butter surplus was near it peak. Because of the surplus there were 300 million pounds of dairy products in warehouses as of April 1990.

In the late afternoon of May 3, 1991 flames broke out at Central Storage and Warehouse Company on Cottage Grove Road in Madison, Wisconsin. At this time there was 10-15 million pounds of butter in the warehouse. The warehouse also contained cranberries and hot dogs. At the time the fire started there were 25 employees at the warehouse and thankfully none of them were injured. Firefighters claimed to see flames up to 300 feet high. It took 20 hours to contain the blaze and it took 8 days for it to be completely extinguished. 

Due to the river of butter and melted cheese fuel trucks were unable to get to the firetrucks to refuel them. Mechanics had to wade through the river on foot to bring in fuel. Spraying the warehouse with water also cause more melted cheese and butter to ooze out of the warehouse. About 5 hours after the fire started one of the buildings collapsed adding even more butter to the flood. There were pools of butter and melted cheese 2-3 feet high with 5 foot pools in some areas. One firefighter reported that he has "butter in places a guy shouldn't have butter by the end of that night." Nearly 3000 residents were evacuated to a local high school due to concerns of the flames spreading. Neighbors in the area stated that there was a horrible stench in the air. 

According to the Environmental Protection Agency butter spills have the same affect on wildlife as oil spills. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources constructed multiple dams to keep the flood of butter and melted cheese out of the local waterways. Damages were $7.5 million (16.8 million in 2023) in property damage, $70 million ($157 million in 2023) in contents and $1 million ($2.24 million in 2023) in fire control. The clean up costs were $500,000 (1.23 million in 2023) and was paid by Central Storage and Warehouse Company and a grant from the USDA. Arson investigators determined that the fire was accidental on May 7, 1991. Reconstruction of the facility was not completed until October 2011.