HOUSTON \u2013 For the first time since a massive fire tore through a Houston recycling facility, the managing director of Mammoth Metal Recycling is speaking publicly.<\/p>\n
Managing Director, Prateek Desai, told KPRC 2 News Reporter Corley Peel that the company is making sure this doesn\u2019t happen again. He told KPRC 2 News Reporter Sandy Torres at the scene that he was in Dallas when the fire broke out and immediately returned to Houston to work with city officials and firefighters.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very disturbing, let\u2019s put it that way. I didn\u2019t expect this,\u201d Desai said.<\/p>\n
Desai suggested the fire was accidental in nature.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe what triggered the fire was a natural act of God or causes because of heat and friction. I don\u2019t think there was any, they found it to be accidental,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
However, the Houston Fire Department says the cause of the fire is still under investigation.<\/p>\n
The fire comes as a series of questions surround the company and its leadership.<\/p>\n
A Houston Fire Department source told KPRC 2 News that Mammoth Metal Recycling had been cited twice in the past month for illegal burning. Court records also show the City of Houston sued the company for more than $70,000 in delinquent taxes and later won a default judgment.<\/p>\n
When asked about the tax issues, Desai defended the company\u2019s record.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, we\u2019ve been paying our taxes. All our taxes are paid up to date, except for 2025,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
KPRC 2 News is also working to verify the status of a court-ordered sale of the property.<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s troubles do not stop there. Federal prosecutors indicted company leaders in 2023 in connection with an alleged $53 million COVID relief fraud scheme. Court records show one owner pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and is scheduled to be sentenced in August.<\/p>\n
Despite the questions surrounding the company, Desai says Mammoth Metal Recycling is focused on moving forward and preventing future incidents.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are working towards containing it more and remediating it and cleaning up the whole space and making it better, so that this won\u2019t happen again in the future,\u201d Desai said.<\/p>\n
KPRC 2 News has been attempting to reach the CEO and owner of Mammoth Metal Recycling for comment since the fire broke out. Desai says he is passing along KPRC 2\u2019s contact information to the owner and will request a statement about the fire.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 For the first time since a massive fire tore through a Houston recycling facility, the managing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[630,56,58,57,123646],"class_list":["post-348208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-fire","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-mammoth-metal-recycling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}