Chemical Fire Explodes in Missouri

If you didn't see it on the news last night a huge chemical fire happened near downtown KC yesterday.  This company actually supplied some chemicals to the company I work for.  They have other branches all over so it probably won't effect us too much.  Fortunately no one was hurt.  Amazing, when considering the scope of it.  On my way home it looked like a huge thunderstorm was moving in.  When I got home I could smell it, basically a smell of burnt plastic.  Near the site within a mile radius black chunks of carbon were falling from the sky.  Fortunately this stuff wasn't too hazardous from a toxicity standpoint.  It would have been a very different outcome had they had some oddball chemical other than hydrocarbon solvents.  It would have been a major disaster in this city.

Investigators say several 55-gallon drums of chemicals exploded behind the warehouse yesterday. The explosions set off more blasts and fires at the site, which is in a mixed industrial and residential neighborhood that's northeast of downtown.

An attorney for the Chemcentral plant says it's not immediately clear what caused the blasts.

Founded in 1926 as William J. Hough Co., a distributor of turpentine and rosin, ChemCentral now sells more than 8,000 products, including coatings, adhesives, caulks, sealants, cleaning agents, cosmetics, inks, paint coatings and plastic and rubber compounds.

The local facility employs 15 to 20 people, said Daniel Brennan, a corporate attorney at the company’s Bedford Park, Ill., headquarters. The company operates more than 100 warehouses, distribution centers and sales offices worldwide.

In 1999, ChemCentral experienced a fire at its Seattle area distribution plant that sent flames 50 feet into the air and spread a dense black cloud of smoke. The fire burned for 12 hours.