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Cedar City Recycling Facility Catches Fire... Again

Cedar City fire fighters have again responded to the Stone Castle Recycling facility, where fire erupted overnight amid piles of recyclable debris.

Early Tuesday morning, Cedar City dispatch received a call about smoke billowing from the Stone Castle Recycling Center at 1342 West Industrial Road in Cedar City. Fire fighters arrived to find piles and piles of plastic and other recyclable materials smoldering on the floor of the large concrete and metal building.

Cedar City Fire Chief Paul Irons said it was a difficult, time-consuming process to completely extinguish the fire.

"It's just like taking a garbage dump and putting four walls and a ceiling on it," Irons said. "We'd rather fight a haystack fire than one of these, and this is our second time here. We're doing the same thing, we're having to haul everything out, and lay it out on the ground and extinguish it again."

Cedar City Fire Department has twice doused fires at the recycling center. The Parowan Fire Department likewise responded to a similar incident at Stone Castle's Parowan facility earlier this year.

Stone Castle Recycling takes care of electronic waste, such as computers and cell phones, as well as glass, aluminum and oils.

Chris Holmes holds a Masters of Professional Communication degree from Southern Utah University. While at SUU his work received numerous awards including the 2009 King Foundation Best of Festival Award in the National Broadcast Education Association Festival of Media Arts. Chris is co-host of the daily public affairs program, Big Picture Morning Show on radio station KSUB (Cedar City, Utah). He also is a sports and news contributor at Cherry Creek Media. He lives in Cedar City, with wife, Marie and five children.