A massive fire on Saturday at a facility in Warrick County, Indiana, prompted questions in Daviess County, but local officials said testing confirmed there was never a danger to the area.
Many people on social media questioned the amount of information made available while the situation was still unfolding. However, Daviess County Public Safety Director Jeremy Smith on Monday said there weren’t many immediate details available as first responders and agencies tried to determine the cause and risk. That’s why Daviess County Emergency Management Agency issued a voluntary shelter-in-place recommendation for residents until testing could confirm conditions.
“The biggest thing is there were some unknowns,” Smith said. “They didn’t know what they were dealing with, and neither did we at the beginning. Out of precaution, they put shelter-in-place orders in place all the way to the river, and that’s when we started coordinating with Kentucky’s Division of Air Quality.”
Smith said computer models and early reports suggested Daviess County was unlikely to be affected, but officials chose to err on the side of caution. The advisory was issued just before 7 p.m. but was lifted by 8:30 after monitoring showed no trace of contaminants.
“We were confident we thought there would not be any harm come from this, and it turns out that was correct,” Smith said. “Once they got the air monitoring devices in place, they registered nothing from the site. So when you consider the distance to Kentucky, that gave us the assurance we needed.”
The fire broke out at approximately 2:40 p.m. on Saturday at PBTT Inc. on Vann Road near Newburgh, where combustible metals, including magnesium, aluminum, and zinc, were stored outside. According to the Ohio Township Fire Department, the blaze quickly grew, drawing multiple mutual aid agencies and a full hazardous materials response.
As shifting winds carried smoke, Warrick County Emergency Management repeatedly expanded the shelter-in-place zone. At its largest, the order stretched from Oak Grove Road to the Ohio River and across portions of Newburgh. Officials said nearly 100 homes lost power as a precaution, and residents were urged to keep pets inside and shut down heating and cooling systems.
By early Sunday morning, the fire was extinguished. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency continued air monitoring and began testing ash and runoff. Officials said airborne readings consistently came back clear, though ash on the ground tested with a high pH that could irritate skin or lungs if touched or inhaled.
Smith noted Daviess County has plans in place if a similar chemical fire were to break out locally, pointing to the coordinated response during Owensboro’s large tire fire last December.
