Hutchinson firefighters were called out twice Thursday, Jan. 31, to deal with a pair of spills of ethyl alcohol at the Ohly Americas plant on Adams Street.

The first spill was reported at 12:02 a.m. Firefighters used absorbent materials to recover what company officials estimated to be 150 gallons of the food-grade alcohol, Fire Chief Brad Emans said Monday.

A second, larger spill was discovered about 7:54 a.m. Emans said company officials hadn’t determine how much alcohol spilled the second time, but some did reach the nearby Crow River. State officials were contacted. Whether any environmental damage was done is unknown.

“We ran out of (absorbent) supplies so we went to 3M and it provided more materials,” he said. City workers also supplied two loads of sand in an effort to contain the spill.

Officials at Ohly Americas’ headquarters in Great Britain were unavailable for comment Monday.

Emans said the spills occurred when a pipe near a pump house sheared off in two places at the two different times, perhaps due to vibration of the pump.

(Terry Davis is a Hutchinson Leader staff writer. E-mail him at davis@hutchinsonleader.com.)