Massive inferno billowing toxic smoke could burn for days

A fire burning at a recycling plant in the eastern Indiana city of Richmond is emitting toxic smoke and has forced evacuation orders for about 2,000 people as it is expected to burn for days, officials said. CNN's Omar Jimenez reports from the scene. Then, CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta discusses the impact it could have on the health of people in the area. #CNN #News

69 comments

    1. @skeptical person with common sense it is hard to tell if people are being sarcastic anymore in the comments. ..slot of bots and brainless everywhere.. I apologize thought you were being serious. 🤣
      I actually live around an hour north of Richmond. I heard about it the day it happened but just from word of mouth.

    2. @Zedeezia well I hope you and your family are all okay. Don’t want to be breathing that stuff in…

    3. @skeptical person with common sense we currently are. If the wind starts blowing north that may be a different issue. Thanks for the concern. I’m just hoping everyone in the effected areas are going to be ok.

  1. Snow described it as a “serious, large-scale fire” that apparently started in a tractor-trailer parked onsite and spread quickly.

    1. @Traci Anderson The cause of the Indiana fire wasn’t immediately known and likely won’t be known until after the fire has been extinguished, officials said. Firefighters responded to the recycling facility Tuesday to find a semitrailer behind one of the plant’s buildings engulfed in flames, Richmond Fire Chief Tim Brown said.

    2. @Traci Anderson So, my guess is that it might’ve been, I dunno, they did say that they found a semi-trailer engulfed in flames so and right after it all just went up in flames like how we see it in the video, but my comment that I stated out, that it apparently started in a tractor-trailer parked onsite so, maybe it might’ve been.

  2. “unknown types of plastic”. the stuff we buy every day. nothing truely unknown. we buy and throw away crap. then we drink, eat and breath it. quite a system we have.

    1. @Piccalilli Pit It is much more expensive to make a glass milk bottle
      Plastic bottles are single use. You have to collect up used glass bottles and return them to the dairy
      Cleaning the glass bottles takes a lot of energy and uses lots of nasty chemicals, which themselves have to be cleaned up and disposed of.
      Note that the above does not take into account the enviromenmtal cost of disposing of plastic bottles. Actually there are arguments both ways as to which is enviromentaly more unfriendly, just as there is betwen plastic and paper bags.

    2. @Kenton202 – You missed the two biggest issues – one for and one against plastic.

      The amount of energy required to transport a glass bottle from a factory to a warehouse to a shop to your home, and all the way back again is vastly more than the energy required to transport a plastic bottle, and it’s very often more oil used to transport the glass bottle, then used to make the plastic bottle.

      On the other hand, the plastic bottle is lowering your sperm count dramatically as it leeches, estrogen-mimicking chemicals into your food and that’s a massive problem.

      The biggest issue which you did touch upon is the lack of decomposition. If you watch the series time team, they dig up a rubbish dump from the 1960s, that covers some archaeology, all the plastic is still there. Everything else is rotted away. Even the metal glass is broken into effective gravel, but the plastic is not touched. The land would be perfectly good for agriculture, but you can’t plow it because it’s full of plastic bags.

    3. @Piccalilli Pit the most important issue is coast it’s just too expensive to make glass & ship glass and that coast is passed on to the consumer.

    4. @Kenton202 – well no – low wages are being subsidized by artificially low costs of food. This was predicted 150 years ago by Karl Marx.

      People can’t afford quality food packed in a sustainable healthy way means wages are too low means profits are too high means wealthy quality is a bad thing.

      The fact that we have chosen to design a completely f-cked up society, is not an excuse for the overuse of plastics. It was not too expensive in the 1940s, in the 1950s in the 1960s in the 1970s… When did wages stop rising in the 1980s

    1. @jonant8317 producing it creates the same chemicals, which are discharged into the air. Plastic is a terrible product for many things.

    2. @CW  plastic recycling has always been a joke, the only real means is reduce consumption and thus production

    1. 😂😂 I know, right? They had legit trust in those officials in East Palestine, too, and we haven’t heard from those freaking people 😅

  3. The mayor says that the plant owner was “negligent and irresponsible”. Which the plant owner was allowed to be because the gov’t was negligent and irresponsible by not enforcing existing laws.

    1. @Anne Hedonia I would be more afraid of a gasoline fire then a lithium fire, the gasoline fire will spread as a liquid trailing underneath any car in that lane or randomly explode if it reaches the tank engulfing any car close by.

      When a lithium battery happens you see it and you have time to get of the way of that car without fear of a massive area being engulfed in the blink of an eye.

    2. @cille shaner I wondered that, many utilities such as recycling centers are co-owned in part by the government even locally. It’s like all these train crashes, the government blames the company while not following any regulations they are suppose to follow themselves to ensure safety.

    3. Trump.😫..let’s get rid of all those safety regulations and inspections…it’s hurting our businesses…. GREED. GREED😫😫😢

  4. Much of what we diligently sort into seperate recycling bins ends up like this — incinerated. Much of the rest goes into landfills.

    1. @Kenton202 wow, how do you manage to concentrate on anything at all when you clearly have to listen to the whooshing sound ‘the point of things’ makes when it flies right past your head?

    2. It doesn’t help that most recycling centers have stopped accepting and processing plastics in the last couple years due to low prices. This wasn’t an issue before covid, the ukraine war and all the other geo politics involved.

  5. There has been a string of hazards accidents across the country these days.
    And they all should be investigated.

  6. it’s not just the particulate matter, it’s the neurotoxic gases released by burning synthetic materials. glad dr sanjay mentioned

  7. Corporations do not care about the impact of their negligence on anyone except their executives and shareholders.

    1. If “God” (1) existed, and is (2) all powerful and all knowing, then “God” (3) is irresponsible for (4) not preventing harm, so we (5) invent “Satan” to blame for “God”‘s irresponsibiliies.

    2. @J Nagarya Exodus 15:3 KJV
      The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is his name.

      1 Samuel 2:6 KJV
      The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.

      Deuteronomy 20:17 KJV
      But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee:

      Proverbs 16:33 KJV
      The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.

      Proverbs 16:4 KJV
      The Lord hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

      Hope that helps with the understanding that God is not a God of unicorns, rainbows and kumbaya. All we can do is keep His commandments, repent and pray for His mercy.

      Psalm 145:20 KJV
      The Lord preserveth all them that love him: but all the wicked will he destroy.

    3. Trump.😫..let’s get rid of all those safety regulations and inspections…it’s hurting our businesses…. GREED. GREED😫😫

  8. SOMEONE NEEDS TO BE ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT ALL THESE FIRES THAT ARE HAPPENING IN THESE DIFFERENT COMPANIES. ????

    1. all in the northeast region ….this is no accident especially when mayor claims and blames the owner

  9. Seems to me these things keep happening near the worst possible places. Wtf is really going on here?

  10. I live in this city. They are very quickly placing blame on someone else because they don’t want you to know that the property is owned by the City of Richmond itself. The city and the mayor knew it was an issue and never did anything. Just look it up on property lookup. Hold the city accountable for their negligence. The city of Richmond owes anyone who was hurt or displaced by this disaster.

    1. Unfortunately the City has already begun profiting from this. Not one citizen is going to be compensated for any expense related to being displaced.

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