Fertilizer Plant Fire Forces Evacuations Firefighters Let Potentially Toxic Blaze Burn Itself Out

Thousands of people evacuated homes on both sides of the Ohio River Sunday as a fire in a fertilizer plant burned through tons of potentially explosive and toxic chemicals.

Authorities waited for the fire to burn itself out at the Cargill Inc. plant, which was not in operation when the blaze broke out at about 2:30 a.m. There was no immediate indication if anyone was in the plant at the time. One firefighter suffered a minor injury.

Emergency crews went door to door waking people within a mile of the plant advising them to take shelter at schools. About 2,500 people left their homes in Maysville and across the river in southern Ohio’s Brown and Adams counties.

Loretta Wills said she left her apartment so quickly that she put her slacks on backwards, and a neighbor left without her dentures. “We just had to grab and go,” she said.

Authorities decided to let the fire in the 25,000-square-foot building burn itself out rather than fight the blaze with water and risking washing toxic chemicals into the Ohio River. The plant is about 600 yards from the river.

Maysville police said the fire was completely out by late afternoon. They lifted the evacuation order around 5 p.m., and residents were allowed to return to their homes.

The fire also shut down a nearby CSX rail line and closed the Ohio River between Maysville and Manchester, Ohio, about 10 miles upstream. All river and rail traffic was reopened when the evacuation order was lifted, police said.

The plant contained stockpiles of herbicides and pesticides as well as 420 tons of ammonium nitrate, the fertilizer that is half of the mixture which made up the bomb set off at the federal building in Oklahoma City.

Cargill, based in Minnetonka, Minn., a suburb of Minneapolis, told the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Sunday the plant stores five potentially dangerous chemicals: methyl bromide, ammonium nitrate, paraquat, endosulfan and carbofuran.

The EPA set up air monitors in southern Ohio to test for ammonia, considered the most dangerous of the chemicals, said spokeswoman Beth Gianforcaro. She said several clouds of smoke from the plant were visible in Ohio.

Although the ammonium nitrate fertilizer was not mixed with fuel oil, the second ingredient in the Oklahoma City bomb, authorities said there was still a risk of explosion.

The cause of the fire was not yet known.