It took 55 years for Harper’s Country Hams of Clinton, Ky. to become one of the nation’s leading producers of cured ham. Yet in only a few hours, a massive fire turned the 100,000-square-foot plant into pile of twisted steel and smoldering rubble. According Brian Harper, the company’s co-owner and vice president, an electrical fire likely started the blaze in an attic area near the center of the plant. When an employee saw smoke there, he knew it spelled trouble.
“By the time I got there … no one could go back into the building to grab anything, because it was too smoky and dangerous,” said Brian Harper. The plant, built in 1952, did not have a sprinkler system, but it was insured. “Our office manager takes a back-up of critical financial things with her every day, but otherwise, it’s a total loss.”