Emergency crews swarmed a South Sixth Street print shop in Oak Creek Thursday morning after 911 dispatchers began fielding calls around 9:30 a.m. about a possible explosion. Police shut down the roadway, dozens of onlookers gathered across the street, and fire and EMS trucks lined up outside Redwall Screen Printing before the scene cleared within about an hour.
Police scanner audio indicated the explosion may have happened inside the facility, according to WISN 12 News, which had crews on scene as the situation unfolded. WISN reported that the response did not appear chaotic as of 10:30 a.m., and that no visible smoke was coming from the business or surrounding buildings. The station said an evacuation was likely given the crowd that had formed across the street, though it noted that police had not yet confirmed that detail. WISN's Newschopper 12 spotted fire and EMS trucks stationed outside the plant near Drexel Avenue.
What We Know About the Response So Far
By 10:30 a.m., emergency crews had begun clearing the scene, and WISN reported no indication of when South Sixth Street would reopen. The station said it had reached out to Oak Creek police and fire officials for details on what caused the reported blast and whether anyone was hurt, but had not yet received a response as of publication. Those remain open questions: it is not yet known whether solvent vapors, dryer heat, or a mechanical failure triggered the reported noise, nor whether the facility sustained any structural damage.
The rapid response was helped along by geography. Oak Creek Fire Station 3 sits less than a mile up South 6th Street from the plant and was built in January 2001 specifically to improve response times across the northern part of the city, according to the City of Oak Creek. Froedtert Community Hospital's Oak Creek campus, with a 24/7 emergency department, sits less than half a mile away on the same corridor, per Froedtert & MCW.
Inside Redwall's 100,000-Square-Foot Plant
Redwall Screen Printing describes itself on its website as a full-service print shop producing graphics for T-shirts and other apparel, operating out of a 100,000-square-foot facility at 7655 South 6th Street. The company says it opened its Oak Creek location in 2002 after starting as a small basement operation in Milwaukee. The property itself last changed hands as a manufacturing facility in February 2015, according to PARADIGM Real Estate.
Founder Jeff Meilander started the business in 1996, printing T-shirts in his parents' garage to fund his Milwaukee punk and hardcore bands, according to the Milwaukee Record. What began as a DIY operation grew into a regional merchandise printer that now works with major sports franchises, corporate clients, and touring musical acts. As recently as March 2025, the Oak Creek Plan Commission approved landscape and parking revisions at the site, adding parking lot islands and swapping pavement for grass to meet city zoning standards.
A High-Volume Industry With Real Hazards
Commercial screen printing relies on volatile organic solvents, chemical inks, and gas-powered or infrared curing dryers, all regulated under federal OSHA standard 1910.106 to prevent flash fires and solvent vapor explosions. Industry data compiled by the Lawson Workhorse Group indicates the printing sector averages 40 to 50 amputations and several fatalities nationwide each year, with top OSHA citations tied to hazard communication, machine guarding, and lockout/tagout procedures. As of this month, Redwall had been recruiting a bilingual human resources manager tasked with overseeing the plant's Emergency Action Plans, lockout/tagout compliance, and OSHA reporting, a listing that underscores the kind of safety infrastructure large manufacturing operations are required to maintain.
The Oak Creek Fire Department, staffed by 58 uniformed firefighters and EMS personnel across three stations, handles more than 4,500 calls a year across the city's 28 square miles, with every firefighter cross-trained as an emergency medical provider. It is a department with recent practice managing commercial incidents: in April, Hoodline reported that Ikea Oak Creek was evacuated after a rooftop solar panel caught fire, with store staff knocking down flames before firefighters arrived to monitor the scene. As of Thursday afternoon, the cause of the reported explosion at Redwall, along with any injuries or damage, had not been confirmed by authorities.
