Authorities have stated that a directive to evacuate over 1,000 people was anticipated to remain effective until Wednesday due to a sizable industrial blaze in an Indiana city situated near the Ohio border.

Emergency crews labored throughout the night to extinguish heaps of burning plastics, according to officials, the Associated Press reported.

The inferno, which started on Tuesday afternoon, persisted into Wednesday morning, with numerous fires raging across roughly 14 acres of diverse plastic materials stowed both indoors and outdoors at the former factory complex in Richmond, located 70 miles (113 kilometers) east of Indianapolis, as indicated by Tim Brown, the chief of the Richmond Fire Department.

“There’s plastics inside buildings, there’s plastics outside buildings, there’s plastics in semitrailers that are throughout the grounds here at the complex, so we’re dealing with many type of plastics. It’s very much a mess,” Brown said, as reported by the AP.

According to Chief Tim Brown, a smoke column persisted on Wednesday emanating from the location, with approximately 15 firefighters having stayed on the scene throughout the night, battling the inferno.

Brown added that the flames are restricted to the former factory area and are “by no means under control.”

Nonetheless, he remains positive that the response teams will advance in their efforts to quell the flames on Wednesday.

Written by staff