Ilion Mayor: If Remington Were To Catch Fire, Firefighters Won’t Enter

Ilion Mayor John Stevens dropped a bomb on the radio Monday morning: if the enormous former Remington Arms plant in the village were to catch fire, a decision has been made that firefighters will not enter the building to attempt to put out the fire. Instead, Mayor Stevens said they will use ladder trucks "and spray water on the fire" from outside. Stevens says the decision to not enter the building was made at a recent meeting in order to protect the safety of those firefighters. He says his office has had almost no communication with Remington, nor with the new owners, Turin Management, who have said they haven't yet decided how the building will be utilized.

According to mayor Stevens, the 32 acre 1.1 million square foot former home to America's oldest gunmaker is unsafe to enter, consider the condition the building was left in. Stevens said that large pieces of machinery have been removed from the building leaving holes in the floor in several places, making the building dangerous to walk through. As a result, the village has determined that in the unfortunate situation where a fire did break out, they will not put their firefighters in harms way.

Stevens added that if there was a disturbance in the building, police would not enter either, because of safety issues.

Stevens has said he has had no new communication with the company that now owns Remington and the building, and nor has he had any additional information on plans from Turin Development, the possible new owners.

"Right now I don't have a whole lot to report, as far as owners in the factory," Stevens said. "We are having an issue now with trespassers," he added.

Listen to complete interview with Mayor Stevens from Monday, October 20, 2025

In December of 2024, Herkimer County announced that a purchase agreement had been reached between the former owners and Turin Development, however, Turin would have up to four months to do their due diligence before finalizing the purchase. Herkimer County Industrial Development Agency Director John Piseck said that the women-owned group officially purchased the property "months ago."

Stevens says that the village currently has had little or no communication with the new owners, and he described the current plans for the property "ambiguous" at this stage of the process.