Texas Firefighters Continue to Battle Massive Blaze in Industrial Area (+Video)
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - A massive fire that broke out overnight at a plastics plant in Grand Prairie early Wednesday is likely to continue burning for at least two days, officials say.
The inferno began about midnight at Poly-America at 2000 W. Marshall Drive when a power line fell onto a storage area containing plastic sheeting, said Bill Murphy, assistant chief of the Grand Prairie Fire Department. He said a rail car caught on fire and then the blaze spread from there, DallasNews reported.
No injuries have been reported and no official evacuations were ordered, but he said people with underlying health problems should avoid the area.
“The flames aren’t as big,” Murphy said. “Our biggest problem is this is a lot of plastic. It burns very hot. You’ve got to have a lot of foam to put on it. … There’s just not enough foam to put on this large of a fire.”
Poly-America produces trash bags and other plastic products and describes itself as “the most technologically advanced and largest recycler and compounder of polyethylene in the world.”
Several fires have broken out at the facility in the past, Murphy said. Thirty-two years ago, a fire erupted under similar circumstances. He said other fires have broken out inside the facility in previous years, but none of the magnitude of Wednesday’s or the one several decades ago.
The company did not respond to requests for comment, though a person who answered the business’s phone Wednesday afternoon said the inquiries would be passed along.
Residents in the area reported sporadic power outages early Wednesday as the fire spread. Oncor said it had rerouted power in the surrounding communities, and by 6 p.m., about two dozen individual outages remained.
Video from the scene early Wednesday showed a huge plume of black smoke billowing into the night sky. The smoke was reportedly visible throughout North Texas, at least as far as just north of Waco.
