Asbestos and debris removed from burned Mystic properties
MYSTIC — Firefighters returned to the charred scene of a massive waterfront shipyard fire Tuesday morning for a minor flareup, and they expect to make more visits.
And when crews aren’t dousing hotspots, workers in protective suits are cleaning up the site.
Firefighters were called back to 2 Washington St. about 6:40 a.m. Tuesday, a dispatcher said. A crew put water on the small fire and left about 20 minutes later, he said.
Rekindling is common with large fires, and firefighters expect they may have to return to the site again.
“It’s going to be smoking for a couple of days,” Mystic Fire Chief Anthony Manfredi Jr. said. He said he plans to bring in heavy equipment to expose the smoldering areas, but firefighters have to be careful not to disrupt the site too much because investigators are still trying to determine what caused the fire.
On that front, Manfredi, who also is the fire marshal, is getting help from the Fire Explosion and Investigation Unit of the Connecticut State Police. He said Tuesday afternoon that the investigation is expected to take some time.
Heavy fire destroyed a shipyard building, boats and a house, leaving behind piles of charred wood and twisted metal. Massive flames licked the night sky and, at times, were blown into rolling balls of fire and smoke, witnesses said.
No one was seriously injured, although a
firefighter was checked for possible smoke inhalation at the scene, the fire chief said. Residents and businesses in the area also lost power.
The giant square of rubble sits next to the Mystic River and is south of the quaint drawbridge that carries the main thoroughfare, Route 1, over the water and through touristy downtown Mystic.
Cleanup of the site has begun, with a contractor picking up asbestos in the neighborhood north of the fire — the direction the wind was blowing Sunday night — not just the property where the buildings burned, said Paul Copleman, spokesperson for the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
“As part of that ongoing process, contractors in hard hats and high visibility vests labeled ‘ESI’ are manually picking up asbestos, starting two blocks north from the fire location and working back toward it,” Copleman said. DEEP notified neighbors that they would be on their property to remove the substance, which he said “was detected in the vicinity of the fire.”
Manfredi said crews are using vacuum trucks to suck possible contaminants from nearby lawns. There is a sheen on the river, too, so crews set up booms to contain any pollutants.
A public park next to the fire site is closed until it is also cleaned up, Copleman said.