Monday, August 17, 2015

Explosions, fire at the DrillChem chemical plant near Houston, Texas


Posted 1:22 am, August 16, 2015, by CNN Wire

CONROE, TEXAS

A massive fire broke out Friday at a Texas chemical plant, producing numerous explosions and huge plumes of smoke.

Mike Legoudes, fire marshal for the city of Conroe, said it appears nobody was inside the DrillChem plant and that nobody was injured. Conroe is about 40 miles north of Houston.

DrillChem makes products for the oil and gas industry. Legoudes said hazmat crews didn’t find anything dangerous but are trying to contain runoff as a precautionary measure.

Legoudes said the fire department received the call at 4:45 p.m. CT and arrived a few minutes later to find two 10,000-square-foot buildings engulfed in flames. The last employee is thought to have left at 4 p.m., he said.

The cause of the fire has not been determined.

On Facebook, the Montgomery County Fire Marshal’s Office reported the explosions from what it characterized as a “multiple-alarm commercial fire.”