Residents Allowed Home After Waste Plant Blaze Prompts Evacuation
Posted February 19, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It was a nightmare that began only after everyone already woke up.
More than 100 people in an Ontario neighbourhood were forced out of their homes Monday by a fire at a waste facility not far from Thorold, Ontario, near St. Catharines.
The blaze started around 6:30am, and more than 75 firefighters were forced to wait around and watch it burn itself out.
“The initial information we had, the chemicals that were burning initially were reactive to water,” explains Thorold Fire Chief Larry Copplen. “So by putting water on it, we would have made the situation worse.”
But it was the unknown leftovers that were forcing officials to keep the area clear.
Clean Harbors Canada processed a wide variety of chemicals, including used lithium batteries, and officials weren’t sure which ones may have been involved in the blaze or what spewed into the air.
As a result, a two kilometre-long block was completely emptied so tests could be conducted to ensure the air was safe to breathe.
“The facility … is a chemical recycling facility,” Copplen outlines. “There was no one particular chemical that we were dealing with. Literally hundreds of different chemicals in different volumes in this facility.”
The Ministry of the Environment raced to the scene, taking samples of the air as quickly as possible.
“We deployed our trace atmospheric gas analyzer,” related a spokesman. “That is like a large Winnebago that is brought out and has the capability of analyzing real time.”
Wayne Burse is one of the residents displaced by the emergency. He lives just 300 metres from the fire scene.
Four loud booms woke him up early Monday.
“You could see smoke and orange and green and yellow flame coming from the factory,” he remembers. “A very loud boom – sounded like steel had dropped off a truck. I thought something had hit the house.”
But when his wife looked out the window, they all realized they couldn’t stay there long.
“Kind of scared,” Burse admits of his initial reaction. “I was thinking I got to get my family out … My wife proceeded to try and get the kids ready to get out … to her parent’s place.”
He knew whatever was wafting out of all that smoke wasn’t something he wanted in his lungs.
“You could smell sulphur in the air,” he recalls. “You could even taste it a little bit more than smell it.”
He’s just hoping it was a one time thing. “It’s something I hope never to experience again,” he shudders. “Very scary.”
Late in the afternoon, the all-clear was finally given and some very tired and nervous people began filing back into their formerly deserted neighbourhood.
Most had been gone almost 12 hours.
At least one worker was treated for shock but wasn’t seriously hurt.
The cause of the blaze isn’t known.
