BLACKMAN TWP- Spontaneous combustion is being blamed for a fire that severely damaged the Parnall Prison laundry facility in Jackson County's Blackman Township on December 16th. Michigan State Police Fire investigator Ken Hersha says that spontaneous combustion is the only cause that could not be ruled out. He adds that spontaneous combustion is not uncommon for a laundry or dry cleaning facility, due to the nature of chemicals often used in such processes. Kitchen rags and clothing used in kitchen work were also abundantly present and are a likely candidate to spontaneously combust after the cleaning and drying process.

He says there is no evidence of arson. In fact, all inmates and employees had left the building by 4 o'clock on the afternoon of the fire. The fire itself did not start until well after 7 o'clock that evening.

The building itself may have been vulnerable to fire. The facility does not have a sprinkler system and has only hand activated pull-alarms, requiring someone to be present to raise the alarm.

John Cordell, a spokesperson of the Michigan Department of Corrections, says that the despite those facts the building did meet the existing fire code. It was built before sprinklers were required, and does not presently require them. The building was equipped with the pull alarms, fire extinguishers, and emergency exits, all of which would, in the event of a fire, serve well to protect human life.

A final figure for how much damage was caused to the prison laundry facility has not been determined, but initial estimates placed the damage at well over $1 million, mainly from the loss of expensive machinery. The Department of Corrections continues to evaluate whether the building can be repaired. 30,000 square feet of the 110,000 square foot facility was destroyed in the blaze that took 8 fire departments to contain.