Tony Buzbee sues Dansons over 2024 dust explosion that injured two workers at Hope pellet plant

Two maintenance workers hurt in a December 2024 explosion at the Dansons wood pellet plant in Hope have sued the plant’s owner and a Houston-area cleaning contractor, saying wood dust left inside a dust collector blew up in their faces while they tried to put out a fire with a hose.

Dalton Dakota Neal of Little River County and Christopher Trent Oswald of Miller County filed the lawsuit Friday in Hempstead County Circuit Court against Dansons Hope LLC, K.A. Industrial Cleaning Service LLC and K.A. Fabricators LLC. Houston trial lawyer Tony Buzbee is listed as lead counsel, with Brent Langdon and Colton Langford of the Texarkana firm Langdon & Davis. The Buzbee firm’s lawyers say they will seek permission to appear in the Arkansas case.

The explosion happened the afternoon of Dec. 23, 2024, at the plant at 100 Temple Drive in the Hope industrial park, where Dansons makes barbecue wood pellets. Emergency vehicles were seen heading up Highway 32 North toward the industrial park around 3:45 p.m. that Monday, SWARK.Today reported. The injured workers were not named at the time, and no cause was announced.

The complaint gives the workers’ account. It says the plant pulls dust-laden air from the pellet line into a baghouse, a large collector that separates fine wood dust through fabric filters. Dust that builds up in or around a baghouse is a fire and explosion risk, the suit says, so Dansons Hope hired a contractor to clean around the production equipment.

The workers knew that contractor as K.A. Industrial Cleaning, according to the complaint, but invoices turned up in an earlier case in Harris County, Texas, list K.A. Fabricators in connection with the work, so the suit names both companies. It says the crew started work around Dec. 13, 2024, cleaned at the plant Dec. 21 and 22, and failed to remove the dust, leaving it “in and around the baghouse in a concentration capable of explosive combustion.”

On Dec. 23 a fire started inside the baghouse, the suit says. Neal and Oswald, working as millwrights or industrial maintenance technicians, opened the lower part of the baghouse and turned a fire hose into it. The dust ignited and exploded, and “the resulting fire and explosive force struck Plaintiffs,” the complaint says.

The two men had never been trained to fight a fire inside a baghouse full of combustible dust, the suit says, and a Dansons Hope maintenance supervisor later acknowledged that. The complaint also says Dansons did not give them flame-resistant clothing, and that the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration later cited Dansons Hope for failing to require removable flame-resistant clothing for five employees exposed to burn hazards at the dry baghouse that day.

According to the complaint, Oswald suffered severe burns and injuries to his spine and legs, including disfigurement. Neal suffered injuries to his neck, mid-back and lower back, including two herniated discs, along with headaches and tremors. The suit lists at least $30,935 in medical bills for Neal so far and says his doctors have recommended more treatment, including a spinal injection.

The suit accuses the K.A. companies of negligence in the cleaning work. It accuses Dansons Hope of negligence in how it ran and maintained the baghouse, controlled dust, and handled the fire response, and of premises liability for letting a dangerous condition exist at the plant without fixing it or warning the workers. It asks for compensatory damages for medical bills, pain, lost earnings and disfigurement, plus punitive damages, and does not name a dollar amount.

The complaint says Neal and Oswald were employed by Dansons USA Inc., which it describes as a separate company from Dansons Hope LLC, the Delaware company that owns and operates the Hope plant. Dansons USA is not a defendant.

The allegations in the complaint have not been tested in court. No attorney had appeared for any of the defendants as of Friday, and the companies had not responded to the suit. The case is Neal et al. v. Dansons Hope LLC et al., No. 29CV-26-400.

Dansons, which makes pellets for its Pit Boss and Louisiana Grills brands, announced the Hope mill in February 2021 at a former Georgia-Pacific site, calling it the country’s largest barbecue wood pellet mill and distribution center and projecting 50 to 100 jobs.