Toledo laundry plant had years of fires before blast that killed two workers, records show

Nearly three weeks after two explosions tore through an industrial laundry plant on Toledo's south side, killing two workers, city officials, federal regulators and neighbors are still waiting for an explanation of what went wrong — and records released since the blast show the facility had a long history of fires and safety citations before the fatal one.

The explosions struck Brent Industries, an industrial laundering plant in the 2900 block of South Avenue, shortly before 5 a.m. on August 18, during a shift change. Toledo Fire & Rescue Chief Allison Armstrong said the blasts ruptured tanks of solvent, partially collapsed the roof and sent flames more than 100 feet into the air. Twelve employees were inside; ten escaped, most with minor injuries. Two did not: Heladio G. Perez, 46, and Mary Allen, 64, were killed. The Lucas County Coroner's Office determined both died of blunt-force trauma.

The numbers

Toledo Fire & Rescue sent roughly 100 firefighters to the scene, about three times its typical deployment for a structure fire, and had the flames largely contained within an hour and a half. City records reviewed by local television station WTVG show six fires at the same building dating back to 2021, most tied to overheated dryers used to launder shop towels and gloves saturated with solvent. An inspection in May 2025 found the plant's sprinkler valve was defective and its records of emergency-lighting checks were incomplete. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration's public case file lists the investigation opened the day of the blast as a "Fat/Cat" — fatality and catastrophe — inspection, and shows the case for Brent Industries, Inc. still listed as open more than two weeks later, with no citations yet posted. A separate OSHA record shows the company was fined after a worker was fatally burned at an Alabama plant in 2015.

How the plant came under scrutiny

Brent Industries operates as an industrial launderer, cleaning oil- and solvent-soaked shop towels, gloves and absorbent pads for manufacturers, which requires storing flammable cleaning agents on site. City fire-inspection files describe repeated dryer and roof fires at the South Avenue plant over the past five years, including two simultaneous fires in October 2024 and a dryer-vent fire in April 2025 in which the facility's sprinkler system failed to activate before crews arrived. A fire officer's report on that incident noted, "We have had many issues with these dryers in the past." No cause has yet been announced for the August 18 explosions, and Toledo Fire's arson investigators are working the case jointly with Toledo police, standard practice whenever a fire results in a death. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which responded within hours to run air monitoring at Toledo Fire's request, says on its official incident site profile for the Brent Industries response that it demobilized on August 28 after finding no exceedances of action levels for volatile organic compounds or particulates in the surrounding neighborhood; Ohio EPA has since taken over oversight, with Toledo Fire remaining incident commander. The main chemical of concern identified in the facility's emergency-planning inventory was Stoddard solvent, along with sulfuric acid contained in forklift and lift batteries.

Who is affected, and the reaction

Beyond the two dead workers' families, the explosion has unsettled the residential streets that border the plant. Neighbors interviewed by WTVG two weeks after the blast said they were still reporting headaches, dizziness and sore throats, though they and officials say it remains unclear whether the symptoms are connected to the fire. Carol Nowakowski, who has lived nearby for 60 years, said the initial blast felt "like loud glass" shattering as it shook her home. Longtime employees of the plant have also been left without a workplace: the facility remains closed while investigators comb through the wreckage, and the ten surviving workers from that shift, along with the rest of Brent Industries' staff, have not said publicly when or whether operations will resume.

Mary Allen's daughter, Lenore Bangura, told reporters her mother had worked at the plant for 13 years, rising before dawn each day to make her 5 a.m. shift.

"My mom is nothing short of amazing. She's just a black rose in the concrete."

Dozens of family members and neighbors gathered for a vigil the evening after the explosion. Brent Industries' ownership said in a statement after the fire that it appreciated the work of Toledo's police and fire departments and that it was cooperating with the agencies investigating the incident, but the company has since declined to answer further questions from reporters about the fire's cause or its safety record. Toledo City Council's Sustainability Committee convened a public session on September 2 specifically to press city and state officials for an update, an unusual step for a matter still under active investigation, according to the council's own committee page. Councilman George Sarantou, who sits on the committee, said the goal was accountability rather than blame. "This was a horrible situation," he said. "And we just want to make sure that, first of all, that we find out exactly the causes and seek efforts to prevent future tragedies like this." Some residents, invoking the 2023 East Palestine, Ohio, derailment and chemical fire roughly 100 miles away, have asked the city to commission independent air and soil testing rather than rely solely on the company's contracted monitoring.

What happens next

OSHA has up to six months under its standard fatality-inspection timeline to complete its probe and issue any citations, and the agency has said it will not discuss findings publicly before then. Toledo Fire's joint arson investigation with police has not set a public deadline. Ohio EPA has taken over lead environmental oversight of the site from its federal counterpart and, according to the agency's incident file, is continuing to monitor a light sheen that appeared in nearby waterways after the fire, which crews contained with booms. Toledo's city council has signaled it may hold further hearings as the OSHA and fire investigations progress, and residents who have pressed for independent testing say they intend to keep raising the issue at future council sessions. For the family of Mary Allen and Heladio Perez, and for the plant's other workers, the central question — what triggered the twin explosions before dawn on August 18 — remains, for now, unanswered.