Thousands of people are under an evacuation order after a massive fire engulfed a recycling plant in an Indiana city along the Ohio border. Officials warned the blaze could burn for days.
The fire broke out around 2 p.m. on Tuesday, inside a a former factory site now used to store plastics and other materials for recycling or resale.
The flames started inside a tractor-trailer parked behind one of the main buildings at the sprawling facility in Richmond, about 70 miles east of Indianapolis. The trailer was loaded with an “unknown type of plastics,” and the fire quickly spread to other piles of plastics around the trailer and ultimately to the building, Richmond Fire Chief Tim Brown said.
So far, no injuries have been reported but the more than 2,000 residents living within a half-mile of the fire were told to evacuate. People outside that radius who live downwind of the fire were also advised to keep windows closed and pets inside.
The blaze produced a dark plume of smoke that continued to loom over the area on Wednesday. Wind sweeping in from the west also carried some of that smoke into Ohio.
“The smoke is definitely toxic,” Indiana State Fire Marshal Stephen Jones told reporters during a press briefing. “We don’t want the residents in the smoke. As the wind changes we may change the direction of the evacuations.”
Jones noted that “there’s a host of different chemicals plastics give off when they’re on fire.”
The fire has since been contained, but the fire marshal warned it could continue to burn for several days more.