NORWICH – The cause of the natural gas rig fire on New Year’s Day on County Rt. 22 in the town of Smyrna is still under investigation, according to a Norse Energy, Inc. spokesman.

The Norwegian parent company of Nornew, Inc., which maintains a field operations office at the Eaton Center in Norwich, said the company’s insurance investigator is looking at the surrounding circumstances and would be reporting back shortly.

“No one saw the fire ignite. The well was not being drilled. It was completed, and workers were working at other things. The rig simply hadn’t been removed yet,” Dennis Holbrook, company spokesman commented Tuesday from Nornew’s office in Buffalo.

Nornew workers attempted to extinguish the fire before calling for emergency support. Emergency squads from Smyrna, Sherburne and Earlville arrived at the scene at 4:44 p.m. Flames from the well head itself and, later, a gas rig, were extinguished rapidly, and responders left the scene by 8 p.m.

Chenango County Fire Coordinator Matt Beckwith told the Chenango County Board of Supervisors on Monday that he believed the fire was ignited after pressure escaping from a leaky valve forced rocks up from the well, which then struck a florescent light on the rig and sparked a fire.