Debris found 1.5 miles away from the blaze in Richmond contained asbestos, the EPA said.
Some debris from a giant fire at a plastics recycling plant in Indiana contains asbestos, officials warned Thursday, as firefighters inched closer to fully dousing the blaze.
The fire, which has been burning since Tuesday afternoon, sent black smoke over Richmond and surrounding towns in eastern Indiana and western Ohio. Officials quickly warned that the smoke could contain cancer-causing toxins.
“I am happy to say that we have it 90% — maybe a little bit more — out, and we’re hoping to have the fire close to 98%, 99% out sometime this evening, or if not by tomorrow morning,” Richmond Fire Chief Tim Brown said Thursday at a news conference.
Crews with bulldozers and backhoes have been getting deeper into the plastics facility, which contained large amounts of shredded and bulk recycled plastic, according to city officials.
Residents in the area were instructed to steer clear of anything that’s landing in residential yards, since debris recovered 1.5 miles from the fire was found to contain asbestos, according to Jason Sewell, an on-scene coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency.
“Probably the worst thing you can do if you have debris in your yard … would be to mow and break up that material,” Sewell said, since that would raise the risk of inhaling it.
“Don’t disturb the debris for now. Avoid mowing until we come out with more instructions on outdoor cleanup,” Sewell added.
Asbestos is a known carcinogen. Exposure can cause various forms of mesothelioma — a cancer of the membranes lining the chest and abdomen — as well as lung and ovarian cancer.
The EPA said test results from air samples would likely be known by Friday morning.
Public schools in Richmond, a city of around 35,700 about 70 miles east of Indianapolis, will remain closed Friday for the third day in a row.
Residents said Thursday that they could see an improvement in the surrounding environment.
“I can breathe a little bit, it’s not quite as bad today,” Jo Fields, a food preparer who lives in the half-mile evacuation zone, told Us.Mistertruth on Thursday. “You can see it — it’s a lighter smoke, not really, really bad like it had been. This looks like a bonfire versus a black rolling smoke.”
Fields, 60, said the sights, sounds and smells of Richmond earlier this week were nothing like she’d experienced before. She chose to remain in town to care for loved ones with medical needs who can’t leave easily.
“It was the plastic, the chemicals, it was a taste I’ll never want to have again,” she said. “I was covering my face with my shirt.”
Dr. Vin Gupta, a pulmonologist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, urged residents near Richmond to trust their noses and act accordingly.
“If you smell it, you’re likely breathing it in this case,” he told MSNBC. “The types of chemicals that get released from plastic burning, you should be able to smell it.”