On July 7, 2005 at 11:53 AM the Greendale Fire Department was dispatched to a working structure fire at Alternative Plastics in Greendale (Dearborn County), IN. The fire was reported by a worker at the factory, which manufactures plastic products. Fire fighters arriving found an extremely heavy fire inside the second building of the business which handled bundled plastics and machinery. The fire could not be extinguished by fire fighters using heat penetrating foam to try to cool the burning plastic.
Assistance was called from the following Indiana Fire Departments: Aurora FD, Lawrenceburg FD, Dillsboro FD, Bright FD, Hogan Township FD, Miller York FD, Moores Hill FD, Manchester FD, and Rising Sun FD.
Additionally, Indiana Emergency Management Agencies responded including Dearborn County EMA, Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM), and the Indiana State Fire Marshall.
IDEM OSC Jason Sewell requested assistance from U.S. EPA OSC Steve Renninger at 2:30 PM on July 7. EPA mobilized START air monitoring resources and established air monitoring in Greendale, Lawrenceburg, Aurora, and Ludlow Hill for volatile organics and particulates. Additionally, EPA and IDEM OSCs monitored fire water run-off into the adjacent Tanners Creek. ORSANCO sampled Tanners Creek on July 7 and July 8 for laboratory analysis.
A Unified Command was established on July 7 with additional FD support recived from northern Kentucky and southwest Ohio fire departments. Based on EPA air monitoring results a Shelter in Place was in effect for Industrial Drive and Heiler Heights, west of the Alternatice Plastics facility through July 8.
The fire was controlled on July 8 at 8:00 PM. EPA continued air monitoring through July 9 with support from EPA-ERT and EPA OSC Craig Thomas. EEI (cleanup contractor) was hired by Alternative Plastics to remove ponded fire water. EEI collected approximately 100,000 gallons of water as of July 9.
