The Butter Fire at Central Storage & Warehouse in Madison burned for days, thanks in part to 10 million pounds of butter.
It was the biggest blaze the Madison Fire Department has handled to date, and there were plenty of bizarre details.
Thirty-five years ago on May 3, 1991, firefighters responded to Central Storage & Warehouse Co. on Cottage Grove Road.
An unmanned forklift inexplicably started. Flammable liquid sprayed from hydraulic lines onto warehouse contents, which included lard, cheese and 10 million pounds of butter being stored by the federal government.
The fire burned for days.
The Madison Fire Department released unseen photos from investigative files, and a remembrance of that day.
Below is a Wisconsin State Journal article about the fire from 2011 by reporter Karen Rivedal:
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‘Huge grease fire' was a hot mess
Shortly before 3 p.m. on May 3, 1991, a forklift stood in a warehouse aisle, waiting for warranty repairs.
Unmanned, it was motionless, and then — disastrously — it wasn't.
"For some reason, the forks went up by themselves, and they were fully extended, and the motor kept going, which broke hydraulic lines (on the forklift)," said Ken Williams, owner of Madison-based Central Storage & Warehouse Co.
The company's sprawling headquarters on Cottage Grove Road nearly burned to the ground over the next three days, as the line break spewed flammable liquid on hot machine parts and food products on the warehouse shelves, setting off an inferno.
"(The liquid) sprayed on the Oscar Mayer shrink wrap on hot dogs and stuff, and that shrink wrap just flamed tremendously and broached the roof in about 3.5 minutes," Williams recalled in a recent interview. "It was that fast. The sprinkler systems really were not able to even work."
With so much oil-rich food on hand, including lard, cheese and more than 10 million pounds of surplus butter stored by the federal government, the fire was a hot mess — fast-moving, destructive and difficult to put out.
"It was a huge grease fire," said Williams, who took over CSW when his father, company founder C.J. Williams, died in 1973.
"It just smoldered and smoldered," he added. "It stunk pretty bad, too."
"Water had little effect on it," the Madison Fire Department said about the fire on its website.
On May 11, 1991, the fire was officially declared out. As many customers filed suits against CSW for their product losses, company lawyers began a long legal battle against the forklift manufacturer, Crown Equipment Corp. of Ohio, for negligence.
Williams said the day of the fire wasn't the first time the forklift had faltered.
"It had a history at times of operating by itself," he said. "The lifts would go up, and it was a large thing."
CSW eventually won its case, as did the U.S. government, which sued Crown for its product losses.
But success was far from certain for a long time, and it was tempting to give up, Williams said. Declaring bankruptcy would have been less risky and would have allowed Williams' mother, then 83, to keep her home and avoid prolonged litigation.
"But she was a tough old bird," Williams recalled. "She asked me directly, ‘What would your dad have done?' And I said, ‘Fought it,' and she said, ‘Do it.'"
