On September 3, 1991, an industrial fire caused by a failed improvised repair to a hydraulic line destroyed the Imperial Food Products chicken processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina.

For reasons that remain disputed, Roe ordered several exterior doors of the plant locked in the summer of 1991—including a labeled fire exit—in violation of federal safety regulations and without notifying most workers.

In September, the plant's maintenance workers attempted to replace a leaking hydraulic line, attached to the conveyor belt which fed chicken tenders into a fryer in the processing room, with improvised parts.

[16] Hamlet was economically depressed and local officials, valuing the employment it gave to residents, chose to treat Imperial with "benign neglect", according to city manager Ron Niland.

[28] Food safety inspectors from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) visited the plant daily to examine the quality of the chicken, check for insects and vermin, and ensure that the facility's workers and processes were hygienic.

[41] Two years later, OSHA received an anonymous safety complaint, and upon further investigation found the Pennsylvania facility experienced twice the national rate of workplace injuries in food processing.

[44] Because of Imperial's poor safety record, the company only obtained workers' compensation insurance in North Carolina from Liberty Mutual after being placed in the state's assigned risk pool.

[45] Over the Labor Day weekend of 1991, the plant's maintenance crew reviewed the hydraulic system of a conveyor belt which moved chicken tenders into a 29-foot-long (8.8 m), 300-gallon Stein fryer in the processing room.

The plant's head mechanic, John Gagnon, asked Brad Roe for funds to purchase the specific line and connectors needed to replace the leaking hose.

[35] That morning the maintenance workers reconsidered their hydraulic repair, as the line they had used was longer than the standard part and the excess length lay on the floor; they figured it could be a tripping hazard.

[55] The plant had open spaces between rooms, in place of doors, to allow for easy access by forklifts, the only barriers being occasional curtains of plastic strips to hold in refrigerated air.

After this attempt, a group of workers retreated to a nearby cooler to avoid the smoke and flames, but its door would not fully shut and allowed carbon monoxide to seep into the compartment.

[63] Imperial maintenance worker Bobby Quick eventually managed to kick open the north exterior door in the breakroom, rupturing discs in his spine in the process.

[78] They determined the plant posed an imminent danger to workers because it lacked an automatic fire extinguisher over its cooker[79] and Imperial voluntarily suspended its operations, pending improvements.

[88] Faced with these challenges, on October 9 Roe sent another letter to his workers, stating that the plant would not reopen due to Imperial's "inability to make an arrangement to finance its short- and long-term obligations".

"[70] When asked similar questions on other occasions, Fuller suggested that the Dobbins Heights firefighters were not qualified to fight the plant fire and should have felt "honored" to be placed on standby.

[93] When the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) interviewed Fuller, he reportedly told them that he knew about the locked door near the dumpster and believed it was necessary to keep plant workers from stealing.

Fuller later denied rumors that he had approved of the door's locking or that Imperial owners had bribed his men with free chicken tenders in exchange for ignoring their plant's issues.

[57] Covington also asked North Carolina Deputy Commissioner of Insurance Timothy Bradley to conduct an investigation;[99] his preliminary report of the state's findings was released on September 6.

[106] PhilaPosh, a Philadelphia-based union worker safety organization, printed mock wanted posters with Roe's face and accusing him of murder, and joined with other labor advocacy groups in launching a petition to arrest him.

[54][112] As a result of the official investigation into the fire, the North Carolina Department of Labor imposed a $808,150 (equivalent to $1,807,823 in 2023) fine on Imperial Food Products for 83 OSHA violations, the highest such penalty in the state's history.

[119] One group of plaintiffs sued Hamlet's municipal government, claiming that the fire department had failed to inspect the plant and that delays on the day of the disaster had contributed to the death toll.

The North Carolina Supreme Court ultimately ruled in a 5–2 vote that, though the department's failure to inspect the Imperial plant was neglectful, it was "not the kind of negligence for which damages can be collected".

He asked them to match Governor's Martin's funding increases towards labor inspections and that they temporarily loan 24 inspectors to the state until North Carolina could train its own personnel.

Brooks refused, and on October 23 OSHA unilaterally altered the terms of the regime,[123] dispatching 14 of its own inspectors to North Carolina to act independently of the state program, an action it had never taken before.

[102] The United States House Committee on Education and Labor also held hearings on the fire and concluded that both OSHA's and North Carolina's enforcement of safety standards were ineffective.

[141][54] In the years after the disaster, former workers and members of the African American community, including former school principal Allen Mask and minister Tommy Legrand, appealed to the city to bulldoze the plant ruins, saying the structure had negative psychological impacts on locals and posed a potential physical health hazard to the public.

City leaders refused to pay for a demolition themselves due to budget concerns, but Mask's and Legrand's lobbying efforts got the attention of State Senator Wayne Goodwin and U.S. Representative Robin Hayes in the late 1990s.

[151] Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon wrote a song about the incident called "Hamlet Chicken Plant Disaster" and included it on their 1994 album Prairie Home Invasion.

[159] The Heritage Foundation fellow John Hood argued, "The Hamlet fire, and a few other workplace disasters, are tragic and make good copy or news footage, but they tell us virtually nothing about worker safety in the United States.