Whopping Big Chemical Fire in KC
 

Wheee!!! Some chemical distribution plant in the bottoms here in KC is blazing away. No one has said what's actually burning outside of saying "petroleum product in a heated tank", but its ripping. The smoke plume is stretching about ten miles or more across town, and the smoke is precipitating some sort of styromfoam-like ash. Schools and public offices downtown have been evacuated, the EPA is out in force. I can see the plume going by outside my office window, and the fire is like six miles away from me.

some pix on flickr
http://www.flickr.com/search/?s=rec&...plosion&m=text

and video:
http://www.thekansascitychannel.com/...38/detail.html

That looks nasty. Could it be part of Bush's "Clear sky initiative"? Hopefully it's an LSD plant!

Wow...so do they know if it is toxic?

Is that even in question? I don't see how it could not be.

Place is just about burned to the ground. The smoke is *awesome*. Apparently a bunch of ketone based solvents and such...tens of thousands of gallons of it.

Been watching it on CNN since it started. They couldn't do a damn thing about it except watch....too hot...too nasty....to dangerous. Besides why put it out and have to deal with all that toxic crap, when you can just let it dispose of itself.;)

Here's what it looked like before the fire. And a link to the Google Map of the location. Selene drives down Choteau Trafficway to Front Street (about two blocks to the East of the plant site) five nights a week on her way to her blackjack training class at one of the riverboat casinos further to the East. I just drove by it myself a week ago, within sight of the plant.

The immediate concern now is the railcars sitting on the siding (pretty much in the same location as those in the picture here). They contain more of the same stuff that has been burning, and one of the cars is venting rather fiercely right now. Also, the EPA just brought an air sampling aircraft up from Dallas and flew through the smoke plume to see what, exactly, we're dealing with. Downtown Airport was warning aircraft that flew through the smoke to wash the airframe as soon as possible after landing since the stuff that is burning is essentially paint thinner.

The smoke column itself, which I couldn't see from my office, was amazingly large and impressive on the way home. I wish I'd had a camera. It looked like a giant black tornado was about to eat Downtown.



http://www.google.com/maps?q=901+N+P...i=map&ct=image

Hey, barefoot...people said they could see the smoke from Lawrence. True?

wow.. just talked to a friend of mine back in Larryville... he didn't say anything about it.. cool.. perhaps it the KC councils way of making way for upscale apts/lofts over there.. rather than just the haunted houses? oops! and look at all that leftover insurance money!

They've all but got it out this morning. Just a faint smoke plume rising from the ruins. No haunted houses on this side, Cowhead...this is the East Bottoms, down the hill from the Old Northeast neighborhood, an area of mixed medium/heavy industry and residences. All the haunted houses are in the West Bottoms, at the confluence of the Kaw and Missouri rivers.

It was determined that the byproducts were not toxic outside of being byproducts of petroleum distillate combustion. The "styrofoam like ash" was exactly that...roofing insulation that had been burned and carried aloft by the amazing convection from the fierce fire, some pieces dropping from the sky as much as two miles or more from their source.

I put a placemark on Google Earth of the site...search for "Chemcentral Kansas City".

By the time I looked, it was getting pretty dark so I could not see it -- and I've got a pretty good view to the east.