SPRINGDALE -- Black smoke will continue to billow over Springdale for a couple of days as firefighters allow a warehouse fire to burn itself out.
The fire began Friday afternoon in a 70,000-square-foot building at 659 E. Randall Wobbe Lane. The building is used to store Styrofoam containers for the Cargill poultry processing plant across the street.
Springdale air quality
Questions concerning air quality in Springdale may be directed to the Springdale Fire Department at (479) 751-4510.
Source: Capt. Matt Bagley, Springdale Fire Department Public Information Officer
The decision to allow the fire to run its course in the warehouse was made following the injury of a firefighter at about 5:30 p.m. Friday, said Capt. Matt Bagley, the Springdale Fire Department public information officer.
"He was working inside with his crew and something up high fell on him," Bagley said.
The unnamed firefighter's injuries were not life-threatening, he said.
"They took him to the hospital, he was discharged to go back home and he's going to be following up to have some further procedures done," Bagley said Saturday. "He is at home resting right now."
The threat to human life the fire posed and the ground lost during the rescue of the injured firefighter made it necessary to pull any remaining crews from the building Friday, he said.
"There's some stuff that's up really high in the warehouse that they couldn't see to determine where the dangers were," Bagley said.
Pulling the firefighters out of the building gave the fire free rein to burn its way throughout the warehouse, he said.
Firefighters will remain on scene to monitor the fire as it continues to burn over the next couple of days, Bagley said.
"We have a crew, sometimes two crews, just monitoring the situation, spraying some water into the smoke if there's embers in it and just being present," he said.
Train passage across Randall Wobbe Lane has been intermittently impacted as firefighters run hoses across the portion of the tracks that cross the roadway to fight the fire, said Andrew Preston, track foreman with Arkansas & Missouri Railroad.
Four trains were delayed and one scheduled to travel from Springdale to Fort Smith was canceled Friday due to track closures, he said.
Preston said he anticipates the railroad will be able to resume normal operations as soon as the need to block the tracks is no longer a necessity.
"We're going to hopefully be up to 100% tonight," he said of train operations.
The fire department has been monitoring the air to ensure wafting smoke doesn't pose a threat to area residents, Bagley said.
"We have been monitoring air quality around the scene itself and also in adjacent properties," he said. "We've been out patrolling where it looks like smoke is going and we've got out hazmat meters out there looking for things like carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide and a few other things that are the big concerns in the smoke."
No dangerous levels of toxins has as yet been detected in the air, Bagley said, but he encourages residents in the area of the fire to spend as little time outside as possible to prevent any type of respiratory irritation from the smoke.
"People are safe in their homes," he said.
Kim Bien, a Springdale resident, was at Talon Plaza at 2257 Old Wire Road midday Saturday and said he was experiencing no ill effects from the smoke.
Bien said he was relieved to be able to breath easily, despite the large plumes of black smoke he could see rising into the air southwest of the plaza.
Updates on the air quality will be posted on the Springdale Fire Department's Facebook page in the event there are any changes to current conditions, Bagley said.
"If there's nothing posted on our Facebook page, it basically means that nothing is changing," he said.
NW News on 12/29/2019