At approximately 3:30 pm on November 16, 2012, an explosion and fire occurred at the Nexeo Solutions facility in Garland. The exact cause of the explosion and fire are not yet known. The initial report from the facility was that a truck and rail car were simultaneously being offloaded at the facility when for unknown reasons, there was an explosion. A large plume of black smoke was emitted from the fire that then moved offsite in a westerly and southwesterly direction across a portion of Garland and the northeast side of the city of Dallas. An evacuation was ordered for a 1/4 mile perimeter around the site. The fire burned for several hours while the Garland Fire Department added water and foam to help extinguish the fire. The fire did continue to smolder overnight into Saturday morning with small flare ups from time to time.
The facility is in the business of blending and marketing chemicals but, it does not manufacture them. During the fire it is believed the methanol was being offloaded from the train car and possible the tanker truck. Early reports indicated that toluene and xylene may also have been involved. Oil from drums also located in the area of the fire were released during the fire and fire fighting operations.
EPA and the START team conducted air monitoring in the area of the smoke plume west of the site. The monitoring area was located primarily on the northeast section of Dallas in the Lake Highlands neighborhood. No detections of any type were found in this area. Some monitoring in the area on the Nexeo facility was conducted after the fire had been extinguished. No detections were made in this area either.
Fire suppressant water ran into storm drains located on Wood street in front of the Nexeo facility as well as out into a ditch north of the site. This ditch and the storm drains all flow into an unnamed creek that flows west to east on the facility's north side. This creek flows through part of the city of Garland before discharging into Duck Creek about 1 mile east of the Nexeo facility. Duck Creek discharges into the East Fork of the Trinity River about 10 miles southeast of Garland. Absorbent booms were placed in the creek downstream of the facility and an earthen berm was placed further downstream (at Shiloh Rd) across the creek. By 10 pm, Nexeo's contractor had a vac truck onsite and began pumping from behind the earthen dam. Additional vac trucks and frac tanks have been ordered. Vacuum operations will continue throughout the night in the creek.
