Module 9: Control Techniques - International Association of Fire ...

Student Text IAFF Training for Hazardous Materials: Technician©
Maysville Case Study Activity 5
The Associated Press January 1988
A fire swept through a fertilizer plant Sunday forcing thousands of people on both sides of the
Ohio River to evacuate their homes as tons of potentially explosive chemicals burned.
The Cargill Co. plant contained stockpiles of herbicides and pesticides and 420 tons of ammonium
nitrate-a fertilizer used in making the bomb that destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma
City. Authorities said there was a risk of explosion at the plant as the ammonium nitrate
burned.
“It’s a volatile substance in the state it’s in now with fire,” said Roy Raby, an assistant State Fire
Marshal. The fire broke out about 2:30 a.m. and emergency crews went door-to-door waking
people within a square-mile of the plant advising them to take shelter at area schools. About
2,500 people left their homes in Maysville and across the river in Brown and Adams counties in
southern Ohio.
Battling Blaze Futile
Authorities were letting the fire burn itself out, and a huge column of light gray smoke billowed
from the plant. The fire was expected to destroy the plant by afternoon. Light wind drifted the
smoke northward into Ohio. Loretta Wills, who lives in an apartment complex near the plant,
said she had to leave so quickly she put her slacks on backwards, and a neighbor left without her
dentures. “We just had to grab and go,” she said.
The fire shut down a nearby CSX rail line and closed the Ohio River between Maysville and
Manchester, Ohio, about 10 miles upriver. There was no production at the plant when the fire
broke out. Officials thought propane cylinders were the source.
A volunteer chief was hit by shrapnel after one explosion, said Steve Zweigart, local deputy
coordinator for the state Division of Disaster and Emergency Services. The shrapnel did not
penetrate the skin and the fire fighter was treated at a local hospital and released, he said.
Cause Investigated
Fire investigators were on the scene trying to determine a cause of the fire. Maysville City
Manager Dennis Redmond said the fire engulfed a building that stored several different fertilizers
and chemicals, including the ammonium nitrate.
“By allowing the fire to burn, the pesticides and herbicides have been able to completely combust,
which pretty much gets rid of the toxic effect of those chemicals,” Zweigart said.
“The ammonium nitrate stockpiles posed the chief threat,” Zweigart said.
But Raby, the assistant State Fire Marshal, said, “This is not an Oklahoma City situation.”
An explosive mix of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil was detonated outside the federal
building in Oklahoma City in April 19,1995. The blast killed 168 people. Unlike Oklahoma
Module 9: Control Techniques 9-85