Fire at Forest River remains under investigation

GOSHEN, Ind. -- Firefighters spent over 20 hours at the Forest River plant on College Avenue after a fire broke out Monday night.

The fire broke out around 8:30 p.m.

“When we arrived here obviously the building was fully involved there was flames and smoke,” said Anthony Powell, Assistant Fire Chief.

Firefighters say chemicals and adhesives inside the plant cause explosions as the fire burned.

Multiple fire departments responded to assist.

“We called in for mutual aid from Elkhart Township, Concord, New Paris,” Powell said. “We had crews here all night but we started to clear most of the mutual aid and our extra man power at about 3 a.m. this morning.”

No one was in the building at the time of the fire.

There were no injuries.

“Yeah when we have something like this, there’s no one inside, there’s no life safety at risk so at that point we’re just fighting the fire from the exterior,” Powell said.

This isn’t the only fire Forest River has experienced.

In March of 2019, Forest River plant 59 was also destroyed by fire.

“In the past few years this has been pretty rare and we haven’t had any large structure fires within the last 2-3 years,” said Powell.