Fire south of downtown?

[Midtowner]

I was on I-40 this morning and to the south of downtown, it looked like huge fire. A thick cloud of black smoke was rising from what I guess is 4-5 miles south of downtown OKC. Anyone know what that was?

[Luke]

Five-alarm fire breaks out at Oklahoma City oil company


The Associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY - A five-alarm fire at an oil company in southeast Oklahoma City Saturday morning prompted the evacuation of more than 50 area residents and sent a huge plume of toxic smoke into the air, fire officials said.

Fire Maj. Brian Stanaland said fire officials received a call at 7:56 a.m. of a fire at B&M Oil Company at SE 30th Street and Lindsay Avenue.

"Oh my, there's all kinds of 55-gallon drums exploding right now in this thing," Stanaland said from the scene in a phone interview with the Associated Press.

No injuries or deaths were immediately reported.

Stanaland said the company is a distributor of hydrocarbon products, including kerosene, methanol and ethanol.

Firefighters stopped putting water on the fire in an effort to prevent hazardous runoff and to allow the flames to burn themselves out, Stanaland said.

"There was no way we were going to put this fire out with water," Stanaland said. "We are now allowing the building to burn itself out and protecting surrounding exposures."

"The heat is more intense, and it will carry the chemicals up and over the neighborhoods."

Stanaland said residents in about 30 homes between SE 30th and SE 32nd streets and Lindsay and Durland avenues were evacuated as a precaution because of dangers from toxic smoke.
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http://www.newsok.com/article/1403732/?template=main

[Sooner&RiceGrad]

*disbelief*

*regains self* Well, ya know, these things happen. We gotta feel sorry for those people for a limited amount of time though.