Firefighter hurt in recycling blaze
WINDSOR — A firefighter received minor injuries during a blaze at a plastics recycling facility in Windsor, Ontario.
At about 8:30 pm on June 26, Windsor Fire & Rescue Services (WFRS) responded to the blaze at an outdoor plastic storage area on the property of Blue Pointe Plastics, says Lee Tome, chief fire prevention officer for the WFRS. Product was being moved from the facility, which had closed about a month earlier, when the fire broke out.
While moving a fire hose, Tome says the responder in question was injured. He was taken to hospital for observation and later released.
Tome reports that firefighters arrived on scene to find a “fair amount” of high-density polyethylene plastic on fire. They first tried to douse the blaze with water, but revised their approach after contacting CANUTEC, the centre operated by Transport Canada to help emergency response teams handle dangerous goods.
The advice from CANUTEC was to “let it burn hot and burn a lot of the chemicals off, then try to put it out,” Tome reports. It took about seven hours for the product to burn off.
Reinforcements were provided by off-duty crews as well as the nearby towns of LaSalle and Tecumseh. The fire was extinguished about 16 hours after it ignited, Tome says.
Fire officials investigated and determined that lightning caused the fire.
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