The May 14 fire at the skyscraper-size Turbine 12 at the Locust Ridge I commercial wind farm in Mahanoy Township occurred during routine maintenance, according to a company official. Jan Johnson, corporate communications director for Iberdrola Renewables in Portland, Ore., which owns the wind farm, said Thursday that Turbine 12 is still shut down. When asked how the fire started, she said, "We're still investigating."

Firefighters responded to a report of a wind turbine fire at the first commercial-size wind farm in Schuylkill County, Locust Ridge I in Mahanoy Township, Thursday afternoon, according to reports from the Schuylkill County Communications Center.

Firefighters responded to a report of a turbine fire at the first commercial-size wind farm in Schuylkill County, Locust Ridge I in Mahanoy Township, Thursday afternoon, according to reports from Schuylkill County Communications. ...In service since March 2007, this G87 turbine is one of the original 13 turbines which was part of the Locust Ridge I.

No word yet on what caused a blade to break apart on a wind turbine at the Waymart Wind Farm, Monday afternoon. Two blades on the three-bladed rotor remained intact, but one delaminated, meaning its fiberglass layers came apart. "This is on private property. No one was injured," says Steve Stengel, a spokesperson for FPL Energy which owns the wind farm. ...A total of 43 wind turbines line the Moosic Mountain Ridge. The 1.5 megawatt Waymart Wind Farm was completed in 2003.

Gamesa Inc. on Friday identified a defect in an applicator used to apply a thin Fiberglas layer to wind-turbine blades as the cause of blade splintering and breakage. The blades are manufactured at Gamesa's Ebensburg-area factory.

It all came down to glue. And how it was misapplied by workers. Spanish wind-energy company Gamesa said "insufficient and irregular distribution of glue" caused large pieces to break off seven turbine blades at the Allegheny Ridge Wind Farm near Lilly, Cambria County. No one was injured during the mishap in mid-March, but pieces of the blades flew more than 500 feet, according to residents.

Whatever is causing turbine blades made at Gamesa Energy USA near Ebensburg to splinter should be known within weeks, a company representative said Wednesday. Meanwhile, the startup of the Allegheny Ridge Wind Farm - which will become Pennsylvania's largest wind farm - will be on hold until the blade investigation is completed, Ellen Lutz, director of development for Gamesa's Atlantic Region, said Wednesday.

An Australian company that wants to buy a Cambria County wind farm might walk away if it's not determined what caused seven turbine blades to crack and large pieces of two blades to fly off. The problems at the Allegheny Ridge wind farm are a serious concern, said Neal Emmerton, regional asset manager for Sydney-based Babcock & Brown. Gamesa, the Spanish firm that developed the facility, has been paid, but the deal won't be final until the blade issues are resolved, he said.

Wind-energy experts say incidents such as the splintering of two blades and cracks in five others produced at Gamesa's Cambria Township factory are rare. The American Wind Energy Association views the problem as a fluke, an anomaly that turned up in a time-proven industry involving a highly respected company. "We haven't heard of anything like this before. There have been thousands of blades installed, and this is a first," said Christine Real-de-Azua, spokeswoman for the wind energy national trade association, based in Washington, D.C. "Offhand, this doesn't seem like a big issue. We haven't heard of any other problems."

The Allegheny Ridge Wind Farm's phase one startup has been put on hold because some of Gamesa's locally made blades are chipping apart. Gamesa officials, who met with Portage and Washington township officials Wednesday for the go-ahead on a second phase, said they found issues with seven blades after realizing two of them splintered on the towers. They had hoped to have the first phase online by the end of the month. "The structure of the blade was intact in most places ... it somehow split open and fell," said Alberto Gros Isla, the plant's manager. It wasn't the blades that fell; rather, it was a "thin fiberglass skin" that coated them, he said. One piece stretched the length of the 147-foot-blade, and another was at least 20 feet long, Gros Isla said.