The state’s justice department says an investigation into a fire at a sawmill in Livingston has found the cause as accidental, but the final report is not yet complete.
A spokesperson for the Montana Department of Justice says the fire marshal’s report is still being compiled and did not share additional information.
R-Y Timber’s General Manager Dan Richards declined to be interviewed.
In an email, Richards says the fire started around 6 a.m. Monday in the planer building, which houses equipment that smooths the lumber, when “dust in the air was ignited by a spark.”
The employee that started the planer equipment that morning sustained burn injuries and was flown to a burn center in Salt Lake City.
Richards wrote that the planer building was destroyed, but will be rebuilt.
The R-Y Timber plant in Livingston employs about 70 people. Earlier this year the company’s shuttered mill in Townsend burned down.
