‘Catastrophic’ fire destroys entire holiday season of smoked turkeys at Texas company

A “catastrophic” fire destroyed an entire holiday season worth of smoked turkeys at a popular Texas company.

Greenberg Smoked Turkeys says the Friday evening fire at a shipping facility in Tyler destroyed its inventory and ability to ship products this year. The turkeys are a popular holiday dish for many families in Texas.

The company is offering refunds for all orders after Nov. 6.

“We are thankful this occurred after hours and no one was injured!” Greenberg Smoked Turkeys posted on Facebook. “We are already in the process of rebuilding and will be back stronger than ever in 2021.”

Firefighters arrived at the facility to find black smoke billowing from a freezer facility and debris blown across the road, the Tyler Morning Telegraph reported.

“There’s several explosions in there,” Larry Harrison, who lives near the facility, told the newspaper. “It blew the door off and landed in the street over there. I was out here when it was all going on. A lot of smoke. It was all over the whole place.”

The fire department has not determined the cause of the blaze, KTVT reported. Tyler Fire Marshal Paul Findley told the TV station “some sort of explosion” happened inside the facility.

“We are extremely grateful that all of our employees are safe and healthy,” the company posted on Facebook.

This story was originally published November 9, 2020 at 1:31 PM.