Two people are injured after an explosion in a Marcy-Holmes commercial building on Wednesday afternoon.
The Minneapolis Fire Department responded to an explosion at a metal-supply plant, Metal-Matic Inc., on the 600 block of 2nd Street Southeast.
“It was a small explosion, everyone’s safe,” said Jay VanKrevelen, manager of the plant. “We will be investigating tomorrow.”
Officials ruled the explosion as accidental, and was triggered after a pipe wielding torch lit a mixture of aluminum dust and water, according to a MFD press release. Two were sent to the hospital with “significant” injuries, according to a tweet sent by MFD.
Officials had no update on the two people sent to the hospital.
Nathan Senn, a mill operator who saw the explosion occur, said he believes the cause of the fire was a buildup of aluminum dust on a machine.
“A big fireball,” Senn said of the explosion. “I was working on the mill right by the [one] that blew up.”
One of the people sent to the hospital with significant injuries was a mill operator, whose shirt blew off from the explosion and was on fire, Senn said.
Josh Smallwood, a truck driver working nearby, said that the explosion looked like fire, and a significant amount of smoke was coming from many different spots in the building.
“We got the heck out of there,” Smallwood said.