A fire in the fuel silo at the Houston Forest Products energy plant kept firefighters working for 11 hours on June 30.
No workers were threatened by the blaze, says Houston Fire Chief Jim Daigneault.
"It's a contained vessel, and it was just a matter of trying to get it emptied out and putting the fire out as we emptied it," he said.
When the crew of 14 firefighters arrived at 5:30 a.m., heavy smoke was rising from top of the silo.
One worker with a small BobCat bulldozer scooped out the wood shavings and sawdust from the bottom of the silo and, load by load, firefighters checked the material and hosed down what was burning.
"It took a while to get down to the stuff that was glowing," Daigneault said.
While the cause is uncertain, Daigneault said the it was likely related to a smaller fire the night before.
That small fire broke out in metering bins that are close to the silo and tend to spill material back inside them.