Orange City, Iowa — The Orange City Fire Department has been busy in recent days, but thankfully, no actual fires were discovered.
On Friday, July 19th, Orange City firefighters were called to the Orange City Christian School for a fire alarm, shortly after noon. Fire Chief Denny VanderWel says the school is under remodeling and construction, and they have been having some isues with their fire alarm system. The chief says he wonders if perhaps a wire was cut or damaged at some point. But he says there was no fire. Firefighters were on-scene for about 25 minutes.
Then, late that night, the Orange City Fire Department was called to the MOC/Floyd Valley elementary school in Orange City, also for a fire alarm. Chief VanderWel says they were unable to find any cause for the fire alarms. He says there were no detectors tripped, and nothing out-of-the-ordinary was discovered.
Then on Monday morning, July 22nd, the chief was at Van Beek Natural Science in Orange City, checking out a complaint of a sulfur dioxide smell, which he says is what gives rotten egg gas its smell. VanderWel says they had a battery charger on a forklift, and the battery cooked, with sulfuric acid and a strong odor escaping. He says he was not able to detect any unusual readings with his gas detector, but there was a strong smell, and some people were complaining of nausea. He says he asked for the fire department to be paged. Those experiencing nausea were moved outside, the battery was removed from the vehicle and was also taken outside, and the fire department ventilated the building to help remove the odor. He says they were there for about 45 minutes.
