Blast May Force Layoffs at Bermite

The explosion Thursday afternoon that destroyed an unoccupied chemical blending building at the Bermite explosives plant in Saugus is expected to temporarily halt manufacturing there and idle many of the company’s 220 workers after next week, a company official said Friday.

Rodney Muse, a Bermite vice president, said the defense contractor has enough work “to run a full crew” throughout next week. But he said layoffs are likely after that as the firm runs out of powder to make military decoy flares, now its main product.

“We just can’t sustain all these people out there if we don’t have a product to make,” Muse said.

He said some workers would be kept on to fill a few non-defense orders, such as for explosives used in oil production. But he said it has not been determined how many more workers need to be kept on.

Muse said company officials have not determined the cause of the explosion, which he said sounded like a sonic boom and destroyed the three-story building where the flare material is mixed. Damage was estimated at $500,000.

Muse said it is uncertain whether the company will rebuild or shift the blending operation to another structure.

He said he does not know how long flare production will be halted at the company’s 1,100-acre complex at 22116 W. Soledad Canyon Road.

In April, Space Ordnance Systems, a competing Santa Clarita Valley defense contractor, halted flare manufacture and laid off more than 150 workers because it had no way to dispose of a mounting stockpile of explosive waste. Space Ordnance, which is attempting to recycle part of the waste and ship the rest to a South Carolina waste treatment company, has not resumed flare production.

Remote Control

The Bermite blend building, which was operated by remote control, was used to mix hot-burning magnesium with other materials to make powder that is pressed into flares. Muse said the explosion occurred at the end of a blending cycle as the flare material was being poured from a mixer.

The flares, which burn for only a few seconds at extremely high temperatures, are shot from fighter planes to lure heat-seeking missiles away from the heat of the jet engine.

Bermite is a division of Los Angeles-based Whittaker Corp.