CNN: Richmond, Indiana fire: Fire at plastics recycling plant put out as pollutants are detected.
Residents on Friday remained under an evacuation order and officials will meet Saturday to see the numbers from air and water samples. The results will determine how long the order stays in place, Richmond Mayor Dave Snow said Friday.
“Although the fire is under control, the site is still very dangerous,” Snow said, “I need people to stay away from this location.”
The chemicals hydrogen cyanide, benzene, chlorine, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, were detected at the center of the fire zone – with “none … detected outside of the evacuation zone in the community,” the US Environmental Protection Agency said Friday, noting firefighters should take precautions.
As a two-day inferno fizzles out at a plastics recycling plant a state judge deemed a public health hazard, up to 2,000 residents of an eastern Indiana city are still waiting to learn whether it’s safe to go home.
Residents on Friday remained under an evacuation order and officials will meet Saturday to see the numbers from air and water samples. The results will determine how long the order stays in place, Richmond Mayor Dave Snow said Friday.
“Although the fire is under control, the site is still very dangerous,” Snow said, “I need people to stay away from this location.”
The chemicals hydrogen cyanide, benzene, chlorine, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, were detected at the center of the fire zone – with “none … detected outside of the evacuation zone in the community,” the US Environmental Protection Agency said Friday, noting firefighters should take precautions.
Potentially harmful VOCs were found in six air samples that “will be submitted for laboratory analysis and results will (be) reported early next week,” the agency said without detailing where the samples were taken. Particulate matter – fine particles in smoke – also was found inside and outside the half-mile evacuation zone, as expected, it said.
One of two air samples taken a little more than a mile from the fire site detected chrysotile asbestos in debris, an EPA official said Thursday. Also called white asbestos, it can cause cancer and is used in products from cement to plastics to textiles.
Anyone who may have fire debris in their yard should not mow their lawns until officials can advise more on how to clean it up, the EPA official, Jason Sewell, said. The EPA has been monitoring the air for toxic chemicals from incinerated plastics at 18 spots around the fire site.
