‘Toxic’ Smoke From Industrial Inferno Spurs Evacuation Order in Indiana

More than 2,000 people in Indiana were ordered to evacuate their homes on Tuesday after a fire broke out at an industrial site in Richmond that had been used to store vast quantities of “unknown types” of plastic, officials said.

Reported sometime after 2 p.m. local time, the fire had belched colossal plumes of black smoke into the sky by the time firefighters were able to contain it several hours later. Still, a state fire marshal on the scene said, the blaze was “going to burn for a few days.” On Tuesday night, there was no timeline for how long it would take to extinguish the fire completely.

The marshal, Stephen Jones, noted that the evacuation zone, which impacts approximately 2,011 people in Wayne County, could shift as the winds change. “The smoke is definitely toxic,” Jones said, according to local station WXIN. “We don’t want the residents in the smoke.”

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