{"id":439530,"date":"2026-01-30T20:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T20:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/439530\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T20:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T20:50:10","slug":"u-s-safety-board-investigating-fatal-incident-at-horizon-biofuels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/439530\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. safety board investigating fatal incident at Horizon Biofuels"},"content":{"rendered":"

FREMONT, Neb. (WOWT) – A federal agency has cited Horizon Biofuels over this summer\u2019s fatal explosion at its Fremont plant.<\/p>\n

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration confirmed Friday that they have issued a citation to the employer. <\/p>\n

The July 29 explosion killed<\/a> 8-year-old Fayeah and 12-year-old Hayven<\/a> along with their dad, Dylan D. Danielson, 32, of Columbus, Neb.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, known as CSB, has also been looking into the explosion. CSB has investigated a number of combustible dust incidents<\/a> over the years, issuing numerous safety materials \u2014 videos, alerts, and a major hazard study \u2014 on the dangers of combustible dust, Thursday\u2019s news release states. <\/p>\n

The board, appointed by the president and subject to Senate confirmation, doesn\u2019t issue citations or fines; rather it makes safety recommendations to companies, industry and labor organizations, as well regulatory agencies, like OSHA and the EPA. <\/p>\n

Nebraska Fire Marshal agency<\/a> completed its initial investigation of the incident at the plant on July 31. OSHA is also conducting an investigation, which must be completed within six months by law.<\/p>\n

The Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy<\/a> investigated an air quality complaint at Horizon Biofuels earlier this year. At that time, they did find wood dust beyond the property line. <\/p>\n

Horizon Biofuels was also issued penalty fines by OSHA in 2012<\/a> for four \u201cserious violations,\u201d including a lack of training and communication on workplace hazards and machine maintenance. The company also failed to make sure wood dust didn\u2019t pile up on and around the milling machine, according to reports from OSHA.<\/p>\n

Horizon Biofuels manufactures wood pellets and animal bedding under the name Elkhorn Valley Animal Bedding. It is one of three commercial pellet plants in the state, with the capacity to produce 20,000 short tons of wood pellets, made from waste wood. The company has 10 employees, according to the Nebraska Manufacturing Extension Partnership website<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

This is a developing story. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 WOWT. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FREMONT, Neb. (WOWT) – A federal agency has cited Horizon Biofuels over this summer\u2019s fatal explosion at its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24366,55877,46400,207404,26180,207405,4,142315,450,26096,46397,207403,207383,151,185510,29305,207397,207389,46453,66353,207415,153272,207407,207408,14432,207413,207411,207412,46408,38380,207393,207406,1919,37426,8329,207417,51497,207418,5723,27152,21305,46398,25113,207387,207385,207386,207382,207375,207374,207376,207378,207377,207384,207379,109219,451,119815,10072,6270,8284,207380,14849,934,8685,15061,207399,207400,207401,207414,46426,207402,207394,207410,3,29379,18183,4933,37896,89163,207409,2853,207395,14848,207390,207388,207381,207396,207391,207392,452,453,27306,11484,207416,46338,7157,282,15227,6601,46427,46399,207398],"class_list":["post-439530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-accident","tag-accidental","tag-animal-bedding","tag-ashley-engler","tag-authorities","tag-bodies-recovered","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-updates","tag-breakingnews","tag-building","tag-building-explosion","tag-carl-nielsen","tag-casualties","tag-children","tag-citation","tag-cited","tag-city-of-fremont","tag-cloverly-road","tag-columbus-nebraska","tag-complaint","tag-csb","tag-daughters","tag-disaster-declared","tag-disaster-help","tag-document","tag-dodge-county","tag-dodge-county-nebraska","tag-dodge-county-sheriffs-office","tag-dylan-d-danielson","tag-dylan-danielson","tag-elkhorn-valley-animal-bedding","tag-emergency-declared","tag-explosion","tag-explosion-tuesday","tag-father","tag-federal-agency-investigation","tag-fine","tag-fined","tag-firefighters","tag-first-responder","tag-first-responders","tag-former-grain-elevator","tag-fremont","tag-fremont-golden-sun","tag-fremont-golden-sun-building","tag-fremont-golden-sun-feeds","tag-fremont-grain","tag-fremont-ne","tag-fremont-nebraska","tag-fremont-nebraska-explosion","tag-fremont-nebraska-news","tag-fremont-news","tag-golden-sun-building","tag-golden-sun-feeds","tag-grain","tag-headlines","tag-horizon","tag-incident","tag-investigation","tag-kids","tag-kids-trapped","tag-letter","tag-live-update","tag-livestream","tag-mayor","tag-mayor-joey-spellerberg","tag-mayor-spellerberg","tag-ne-tf1","tag-nebraska-department-of-environment-and-energy","tag-nebraska-fire-marshal","tag-nebraska-task-force-1","tag-nebraska-task-force-one","tag-nema","tag-news","tag-news-conference","tag-osha","tag-press-conference","tag-recovery-effort","tag-recovery-efforts","tag-recovery-help","tag-report","tag-responding","tag-response","tag-schneider-cloverly","tag-schneider-street","tag-seed-explosion","tag-speaks","tag-three-missing","tag-three-unaccounted-for","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-trapped","tag-tuesday","tag-u-s-chemical-safety-and-hazard-investigation-board","tag-under-investigation","tag-update","tag-water","tag-water-use","tag-wednesday","tag-wood-dust","tag-wood-pellets","tag-yesterday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}