Mother of 12-year-old killed in Nebraska plant explosion sues wood pellet producer

FREMONT, Neb. (CN) — An explosion at a wood pellet plant in one of Nebraska's largest cities this past summer killed a father and his two preteen girls. On Wednesday, the mother of one of the girls sued the operator of the plant.

In the complaint, filed in Dodge County District Court, Lauren Baker, the mother of Hayven Danielson, who was 12 when she died, claims Horizon Biofuels Inc. did not adequately operate dust collection and control systems and did not enforce adequate housekeeping, among other shortcomings, leading to the explosion that killed Hayven, her 8-year-old sister and her father.

The explosion occurred about 11:56 a.m. on July 29, 2025. Hayven's father, Dylan Danielson, 32, a day shift operator who had brought his daughters to work, was in the main structure and was killed. The two girls were in the break room, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, one of the government agencies that investigated the incident.

The blast rendered the burning structure unstable and first responders were unable to enter until the next day, when they recovered the bodies. The explosion pelted vehicles with debris and led to the closure of streets and businesses near the plant on Fremont's industrial south side.

"Horizon owed a duty to exercise reasonable care in the ownership, operation, maintenance and control of its Fremont facility," Baker says in the complaint. "The decedent should not have been allowed in the building."

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigated the explosion and cited Horizon for "willful and serious safety violations" in connection to the explosion. These included the buildup of combustible dust and not preventing equipment in the plant from becoming a potential ignition source. The citations entailed more than $147,000 in proposed penalties. OSHA had previously cited the company.

Horizon's phone and website were no longer operable Wednesday. After the explosion, the company's general manager expressed grief and "said he's committed to a complete investigation," but had no further comment, Nebraska Public Media reported. The Nebraska Secretary of State still lists the company as active.

Fremont is the sixth largest city in Nebraska with about 28,000 inhabitants and sits on the north side of the Platte River, about a 20-minute drive from the western fringes of Omaha.

The 2025 explosion came just short of the 50th years anniversary of the explosion of the Hotel Pathfinder in Fremont, which on Jan. 10, 1976, wrecked a section of downtown and killed 20 people in what was, at the time, one of the worst gas explosions in American history.

Follow @nelson_aj