San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
RECYCLING PLANT BLAZE COULD BURN FOR DAYS
A huge fire engulfed a recycling plant overnight in northern New Jersey and raged into Saturday as firefighters battled flames, wind and frigid cold that turned the water from their hoses into treacherous ice. Officials warned it could burn for days.
Two firefighters suffered minor injuries, but all 70 employees at the Atlantic Coast Fibers plant are accounted for, Passaic Mayor Hector Lora said.
The blaze broke out around midnight, shooting flames into the dark as more than two dozen fire departments responded. There were at least two explosions, one involving a truck with gas tanks on it, Lora said.
Smoke billowed into the sky even after sunup, and Lora said firefighters planned to tap the Passaic River to keep dousing an inferno that could take days to extinguish.
“When you consider a recycling plant, everything inside is conducive for continuing to burn,” he told WABC-TV, calling the building “a complete loss.”
The cause is under investigation, Fire Chief Patrick Trentacost said, but he doesn’t consider it suspicious. Fires are not uncommon in recycling plants, he said.
“A lot of oils get on the recycling, the cardboard that they pick up on the streets in the sanitation trucks. So, batteries, acids can start a fire. A lot of factors,” Trentacost told WLNY-TV.
The flames erupted on a
“punch-you-in-the-face cold” night, as the mayor put it, with temperatures in the teens. One firefighter was taken to a hospital with exhaustion, and another after falling on surfaces that were “like an ice-skating rink,” he said.
“We’re going to be here for a few days dealing with this,” Lora said, also citing the impact on hundreds of employees at the plant and in neighboring structures.