LAKELAND -- A fire turned out not to be as massive as it looked from the Polk Parkway early Monday. Despite its appearance, the blaze caused no injuries.

"The thing was just huge," said Louie Nagy, 42, a resident of Winter Haven who was traveling east on the Polk Parkway but pulled over with several other drivers to watch the flames that shot from Pallet Recycle in Eaton Park. "The flames were way up there, as high as 500 feet."

The fire ignited just after midnight Monday at the pallet repair and wood recycling plant on Lasso Lane.

The cause of the fire was still under investigation Monday evening; however, Ed Ahlgren, the owner of Pallet Recycle, said he suspects a chipper machine used to grind wood into mulch caused a spark when nails in the wood overheated.

Ahlgren said Polk County firefighters arrived at 12:45 a.m. after a neighbor saw the fire.

About 500 gallons of water per minute were used to extinguish the flames, which engulfed several large piles of mulch, the biggest pile measuring 5,000 cubic feet, and up to 1,000 tons of refuse, said Lt. Jeremiah Gilley of the Polk County Fire Department.

The fire affected 10 acres of land, including a small area of Springer-Peterson Roofing and Sheet Metal, a roofing company around the corner on Maine Avenue, Gilley said.

Monday afternoon Gilley and his team were still trying to extinguish flames the interior of the smoldering piles of mulch. They broke the piles into smaller ones and doused them with water.

Gilley said the work will continue today.

Ahlgren said his biggest loss was the $500,000 chipper machine, which he bought two weeks ago.

"I am just glad the pallets were not affected," Ahlgren said. "The mulch is just the junk we recycle from the pallets."

Selling mulch to home improvement stores is about 2 percent of the plant's business. The company employs 80 people and repairs more than 300,000 pallets a year for sale to clients in the food industry.

Employees of Pallet Recycle were able to work Monday with only a few having to sit out half of the day.

Gilley said the fire apparently blazed through 10 acres of Ahlgren's 32-acre lot, jumped Longhorn Avenue and into Springer-Peterson's lot.

At Springer-Peterson, about 15 pallets of asphalt, a pile of tires, several barrels and pieces of roofing equipment were burned, but the fire did not interrupt the workday.

This is the second large fire this year in that area. In January, a chemical fire swept through San Juan Pools, a company also located on Lasso Lane that manufactures Fiberglas pools.

Monday's fire did not affect any other businesses in the area.

"We got lucky," said Rick Owens, director of logistics at McGee Tire, a tire distribution center next door to Pallet Recycle, Springer-Peterson and San Juan Pools. "I hope we are not next."
Polk County Firefighters on the job again...

Fire spread quickly through a Polk County business Monday, causing about $1 million in damage.

It happened at the Pallet Recycle Company on Lasso Lane in Lakeland. The situation was made worse when high winds pushed the fire to a grassy area across the street.

The nearby Springer-Peterson Roofing Company also suffered damage from the flames.

The Polk County Fire Department is investigating the cause of the blaze.