An explosion and subsequent fire that lasted 16 hours has killed two workers at an Evonik Industries chemical plant in Marl, Germany. The cause of the March 31 accident remains unknown but is under investigation by both government authorities and an Evonik contractor.
The accident occurred in the early afternoon at a plant that produces cyclododecatriene, an intermediate used to make nylon 12, flame retardants, flavors, and fragrances. One worker was killed immediately, and hours passed before his body could be recovered. A second worker, who suffered severe burns, died of his injuries two days later.
During the blaze, some unspecified amount of the carcinogen butadiene did leak, an Evonik spokeswoman says. However, she says, the chemical was consumed by fire, which accounted for the black smoke billowing from the plant site. The public was never at risk from exposure to butadiene, and no other chemical was involved in the blaze, she adds.
At C&EN’s press time, Evonik did not know the full extent of damage to the Marl plant, but it expects “substantial constraints” for the time being on its output of nylon 12, used in auto parts, photovoltaic modules, and sporting goods. The firm says the accident has not affected output of other plastics made at the site, including the engineering polymers polybutylene terephthalate and polyether ether ketone.
About 10,000 Evonik employees work at the 2.5-sq-mile Marl site, which is also home to 30 other chemical-related companies.
Accidents are infrequent in the German chemical industry. Chemical workers in Germany suffered 9.4 accidents per million hours worked in 2010, according to the German Chemical Industry Association, compared with 41.6 in construction, 9.8 in health care, and 16.5 for all industries. In the U.S., chemical workers experienced 11.0 accidents per million hours worked, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Evonik itself recorded just 1.3 accidents per million hours worked company-wide in 2010 and no deaths.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A vapor cloud is to blame for an early morning HAZMAT evacuation on the city's East Side.

Columbus fire told NBC4 alarms at OPC Polymers at 1920 Leonard Ave. went off at 1:55 a.m. Wednesday.

The plant was mixing a batch of polymers in a 6,500-gallon tank when the mix released a vapor cloud, setting off alarms, Battalion Chief Michael Fowler said.

One person was working in the area when the alarms went off. That employee was not injured.

OPC Polymers went into emergency shutdown, and all employees were evacuated.

Columbus fire and hazmat crews swept the building and gave an all clear.

Prompt response and training paid off for firefighters Friday responding to a fire at St. Joseph Plastics on Fifth Avenue.
Plastic was burning in a specialized machine at the north St. Joseph plant, said Russell Moore, a battalion chief with the St. Joseph Fire Department.
“We turned the corner on Fifth Avenue and there was a huge cloud over St. Joseph Plastics,” said Rick Caton, captain of Engine 12.
The engine, located just two blocks away, was first on the scene.
Because of the chemical compounds in plastics, firefighters couldn’t use water and their large pressurized hoses.
For this type of fire, dry chemicals were the way to gain control, Mr. Moore said. At that point, water could have exacerbated the problem, he said.

Thursday morning, shortly after 8 a.m., the Town of Berlin Fire Departments were dispatched to a chemical emergency at Stanchem, Berlin Street, East Berlin. 

On arrival company safety staff reported that a chemical reaction had occurred involving one of their polymer products. The reaction occurred in a 275 gallon tote designed to hold the product.

Personnel from the fire department made entry and found the tote to be bulging and approximately 200 gallons of product had leaked from the tote onto the floor. 

The entire building was evacuated as a safety precaution and DEP was requested to the scene. Air sampling was conducted of both the interior and the exterior of the building and based on that sampling it was determined that there was no health or safety hazard to the public. 

An environmental contractor was contracted by Stanchem to conduct the cleanup of the spill and DEP remained on scene to continue their investigation and assist in the cleanup.

No injuries to Stanchem employees or fire personnel was

FRONT ROYAL -- A fire at Toray Plastics Factory Saturday night caused significant damage, county fire officials said.

At about 9:50 p.m., firemen were dispatched to an alarm at 500 Toray Drive in Front Royal, Fire Marshal Gerry Maiatico said.

The official cause of the fire is unknown and currently under investigation. Maiatico said it appears the fire started because of a mechanical malfunction.

"Officially it looks like an accidental fire, nothing suspicious," he said.

The original fire -- or flash fire -- had been extinguished by indoor sprinklers by the time firemen arrived on the scene. However, Maiatico said it took about an hour to extinguish various hot spots that had ignited as a result of the original blaze.

"The materials that were involved and the location of the fire in the industrial plant posed several unique challenges to our staff," he said.

Maiatico said that because of a number of the industrial facility's trade secrets, he cannot release a lot of information about the type of equipment that caught fire, or the exact location.

DEWEYVILLE — Damage may top $1 million in a Wednesday afternoon fire that destroyed a 7,500-square-foot recycling facility in this small town east of Tremonton.

The fire was reported at 1:40 p.m. at Hillside Recycling, 12090 N. Highway 38, said Steve Batis, Tremonton fire chief.

The business is owned by Brent Rupp and his brother, Blaine.

Marcy Rupp, Brent’s wife, called the magnitude of the fire “overwhelming” and estimated the total damage will exceed $1 million.

The facility recycles plastics, paper, Styrofoam and other types of plastic foam.

Batis said a welder was working on an addition to the building when a spark from his torch set nearby plastic on fire.

The resulting fire quickly engulfed the building.

Firefighters are on scene of an industrial fire at Bimax Inc., 158 Industrial Road in Springfield Township.
The fire was reported around 11:30 a.m. as a chemical fire in a chemical-production area of the company.
A second alarm was called, but soon cancelled. Officials on the scene said the fire was extinguished shortly after noon.
Loganville Volunteer Fire Co. Chief Rodney Miller said employees were able to extinguish the small amount of chemicals which caught fire for an unknown reason. The fire is still under investigation.
He said nobody was injured, though there were about six people working at the time, and workers are able to return to work. He said there was no structural damage from the fire, and minimal damage to the building's interior.
According to the company website, the facility develops specialty chemicals for polymer applications.

WEST DEPTFORD TWP. — Workers were temporarily evacuated from a local chemical manufacturing plant Wednesday when an outdoor filtering vessel caught fire, Thorofare Volunteer Fire Company Chief Phil Zimm said.
Area firefighters were dispatched not long before noon to the Coim USA Inc. facility for the small blaze that Zimm said caused no injuries.
Coim, an international company, manufactures a variety of packaging materials, sealants, polymers and other products.
Zimm said paint on portions of the carbon filter vessel was bubbling, showing that there was a fire inside. The vessel basically disposes of manufacturing by-products.
Zimm said as of early afternoon, officials did not yet know what caused the fire, which was still under investigation.
Firefighters continually flooded the vessel with foam and kept cooling it in order to ensure it didn’t reignite, the chief said, adding that it should be easily fixed and placed back into working order.

A chemical cleaning company and one of its directors were fined a total of $154,000 on Thursday, for negligence that led to the deaths of four workers from chemical burns and serious injuries sustained by their supervisor.

The court heard that insufficient care had been taken on Feb 27, 2009 in the handling of chemicals used during a routine cleaning of two heat exchangers at Chemic Industries Pte Ltd, a chemical cleaning company in Tuas.

The four workers and their supervisor, employees of Chemic Industries, had to be rushed to hospital with burns from an acidic chemical solution.

The exchangers being cleaned were used to manufacture lycra at Invista Singapore Fibres, a fibre and polymer manufacturer. A previous cleaning of the exchangers by another company using water jets had been unsuccessful, resulting in some lycra polymer solution being left in the exchangers

HENDERSON, KY. — Four people were injured Wednesday in western Kentucky in a flash fire inside a plastics factory.

The accident happened shortly before 2 p.m. CST at Polymer Partners LLC in Henderson, The Gleaner reported.

Company President Blaise Codispoti said in a statement that two of the workers injured were taken to University of Louisville Hospital and one to Vanderbilt University Medical Center. A nursing supervisor at Methodist Hospital in Henderson said a fourth employee was admitted to intensive care there and was in fair condition.

"There were some burn injuries," said Henderson Fire Chief Danny Froehlich. "Three burn injuries and one smoke inhalation. As to the extent, I have no idea."

Codispoti said the company's review of the incident was continuing and "no determination as to the cause of the injuries has been made at this time."

Henderson County Emergency Management Director Larry Koerber said the state fire marshal was en route to investigate.

The names of the injured workers weren't immediately released.

The accident happened in the manufacturing area of the facility, and fire crews extinguished a minor fire near a machine, Froehlich said. He did not know if the plant shut down afterward.

PRINCESS ANNE -- The Maryland State Fire Marshal has concluded the fire that destroyed several orchid greenhouses on the University of Maryland Eastern Shore campus was accidental and began with spontaneous combustion.

Deputy K.H. Travers says the fire originated within a pile of sphagnum moss, which was not near heaters or electrical outlets or any other devices that could have sparked a fire.

Once the fire began it quickly spread to nearby combustible plastics.

According to UMES officials, the fire destroyed much of the greenhouse facility they lease to Jet Green Group, of Beijing, China, and its Maryland incorporated subsidiary, U.S. Orchid Laboratory & Nursery Inc., as part of an orchid growing economic development project. UMES Director of Public Relations Bill Robinson said an initial investment of $3.4 million was put into the greenhouse in 2000, but with the addition of U.S. Orchid equipment and other improvements, it could cost some $6 million to replace today.

Another fire broke out yesterday at petrochemical complex run by the Formosa Plastics Group (FPG) in Mailiao, Yunlin County, the eighth in the past year at the same industrial zone.
The group made an open apology but stressed the brief blaze was caused by alkymer leakage and was quickly put out, inflicting no harm to anyone and posing no other threats.

FPG executives reported the small fire at the No. 3 refinery plant at 4:31 p.m.

Firefighters put out the blaze by 4:50 p.m.

FPG management said that the blaze started during the process of transporting alkymer, which is an element of gasoline and is used to make petroleum products.

Certain amount of alkymer ended up in a ditch at the plant because of the leak. Water and chemical foams were immediately used to contain and snuff out the fire, said FPG executives.

Ennis fire response officials said reports of an explosion at Ennis Paint on Friday were exaggerated.
EFD Capt. Gary Howell said the situation, which involved a polymer chemical containment system at the plant, had been handled and cleanup was well under way as of Saturday after the evening incident.
“Once it got under control and we let it evaporate out of the container, it stabilized itself, basically,” Howell said Saturday.

METUCHEN — Firefighters are still working on the scene of a large, early-morning fire at a plastics warehouse that required the assistance of over 14 area fire companies.
Metuchen mayor Thomas Vahalla said borough police originally responded to a burglary alarm automatically dispatched from C+K Plastics at 159 Liberty Street, but saw signs of smoke and fire instead. By 2:30 a.m. the fire was being addressed by multiple fire and HAZMAT units. It took nearly four hours to put the fire out, according to several firemen on the scene.

A two-alarm fire destroyed a warehouse in Pasadena on Sunday and forced a shelter-in-place order for some residents.
A transformer blew during the blaze at Global Plastics Co., 6224 Spencer Highway, temporarily putting a Pasadena sewage treatment plant out of service. In addition, one of the more than 60 firefighters at the scene had to be treated for heat exhaustion. No other injuries were reported.
Officials said the last employee left the facility around 3 p.m. Passers-by noticed the smoke from the recyclable plastics facility around 4:30 p.m. Sunday.
Authorities issued a shelter-in-place order that from the site to Beltway 8 and Red Bluff. It was later canceled. Hazmat was called to the scene because officials had concerns about hydrocarbons in the building. Global Plastics Co. recycles discarded plastic products by grinding them into pellets, Pasadena Fire Marshall David Brannon said. The facility has had a fire before, he said.
Because plastics were ignited in the blaze, Brannon expected a protracted effort to put it out, using an excavator to stir the materials and attack potential hot spots in the rubble. He expected the facility to be "a total loss."
"The things about plastics is when they start burning, they burn hot," he said.

CHENNAI: Firemen attempting to douse the flames at a polymer plate processing unit on Anna Salai on Tuesday, who were initially unable to enter the area due to the thick, chemical-filled smoke, could be seen spraying foam through a window from a ladder outside the building.
“The firm stored highly combustible material and that caused the enormous amount of smoke,” said Priya Ravichandran, Divisional Officer (Central) of the Fire & Rescue Services department.
Assistant Commissioner of Police (Triplicane) Senthil Kumaran and his team were present to deal with any eventuality, while CoP J K Tripathy arrived around 11.30 am to take stock of the situation. Fire officers said the exact loss of property could not be estimated immediately.
Fingers were pointed at the firm owners for running a “manufacturing unit in a commercial complex”. Other occupants of the building said the firm did not even possess fire extinguishers and the owner had to fetch two from a bank on the first floor.

A truck carrying chemicals caught fire at Chandani chowk early on Thursday. Two firemen were injured in the extinguishing operation. Traffic on both the sides of the highway was disrupted for nearly three-and-a-half hours.

Fire brigade officers said the incident took place around 4 am. “

“The truck was carrying metal containers of acrylic polymer, hydrogen peroxide, phosphoric acid, zinc chloride and calcium chloride. There were also some bundles of ropes and utensils in the truck,” said Prabhakar Umratkar, a station officer with the fire brigade.

He added, “The incident came to light after some of the passengers in the vehicle following the truck saw fumes coming out. We reached the spot in 10 minutes after we got the call. It took about two hours for our 20 member of fire brigade team to bring the fire under control. We had to be extra cautious while extinguishing the fire. Two of the firemen suffered minor injuries.” The traffic on both the sides was dirupted, he said.

HOSPITAL staff were on high alert yesterday (FRI) following what turned out to be a "minor explosion" at a North-East chemical plant.

Darlington Memorial Hospital’s accident and emergency department (A&E) was in quarantine after two workers from Ineos, in Newton Aycliffe, were admitted.

One of the workers had collapsed on site and both of them were taken by ambulance to the hospital where there were concerns over exposure to hazardous chemicals. A decision to close A&E was taken as a precaution following and it later transpired the men had been exposed to relatively harmless chemicals.

A spokesman for Ineos, operators of the former Hydro Polymers site in Newton Aycliffe, confirmed there had been an incident at 6.30am yesterday morning.

He said: "The incident was on the PVC compounding plant whereby on starting up a process, two employees came into contact with PVC compound.

"As a precaution, both individuals were taken to the local hospital for examination and are awaiting treatment for eye irritation.

"PVC compounds are generally non hazardous, and at no point during the incident was there any threat to local people or the environment.

At least two plastic factories which also PT Sumber Mas warehouse in Rawa Lele warehouse area, RT 04/10, Kalideres burned down on Friday (4/29). Luckily, there are no casualties in the fire incident. But, money loss predicted up to hundreds of million rupiahs.

Maskun (32) local resident expressed that the fire started at 7 am. Even though the factory had not operated, dozens of employees had come to begin their activities. Suddenly fire started inside the factory. The employees and local resident tried to extinguish the fire. But, the fire grew bigger and spread to other buildings due to flammable objects.

"The residents have tried extinguishing the fire but the effort was result-less," said Maskun, Friday (4/29).

PASADENA, TX (KTRK) -- Firefighters knocked out a fire at a chemical plant in the Pasadena area Wednesday morning.


The fire broke out at the Ablemarle plant on South Street around 2am. Police tell us the chemical di-mythl-aluminum chloride was released into the air. However, the smoke cloud does not pose any danger. The chemical is used in the making of plastics.

HALDIA: Coulds of smoke hung in the air at Haldia town all through Monday with scary fireballs shooting out of the Haldia Dhansiri Petrochem and Tea Ltd since noon after a major fire broke out in the plastic manufacturing unit. Worse, the chemical tanks at a stone's throw from the plastic godown are getting hot and may catch fire anytime. There has been no casualty though.

The fire broke out around noon while plastic granules were being carried to the plant. Fire officials said a short circuit had triggered it. Initially, company employees tried to fight the flames with outdated fire extinguishers, failing which employees of the neighbouring units came with whatever they had. According to locals, the fire engines reached an hour late.

When the fire tenders exhausted their own stock of water, firemen could not find source of water within the compound. They had to source water from the villages.

GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. --
Firefighters battled a blaze at a Norcross plastics recycling facility on Wednesday afternoon.
Channel 2's Manuel Bojorquez was on Northwoods Parkway, where crews were fighting the flames.
Workers alerted authorities about a fire that erupted outside the facility around 1:15 p.m., firefighters said.
They said some equipment caught fire and propane tanks exploded outside. Firefighters said they don't know what caused the fire.
The building was damaged, but all of the workers made it out safely, firefighters said.