There were 90 workers in Tuesday's 7 a.m. shift at Imperial Foods, a 30,000 square-foot collection of separate adjoining structures surrounded by a red brick facade. Once an ice cream factory, Imperial Foods now produces nuggets and other chicken products for Shoney's, Wendy's and other fast food restaurants. Workers and fire officials say the plant was a maze of large rooms separated by moveable walls. Workers and their product moved through the plant, from front to the rear, as the chicken was cut, cleaned, cooked and packaged, then finally frozen. Doors in the rear of the plant were locked, workers said.
Employees say the management had complained someone was stealing chicken.
People didn't raise them because they were afraid they might lose their jobs,' said Elaine Griffin, a worker who escaped out the front door. Sometime after 8 a.m., a hydraulic line ruptured spewing cooking oil into flames heating a 26 foot-long fat fryer in the middle of the plant. Fuller said soaring flames ignited insulating material in the roof, adding more toxic fumes to the oil smoke. The smoke spread quickly, blocking the way to the front exit. Fuller said one survivor told him he was engulfed by the smoke as he ran full speed to the rear of the plant.