275 firefighters from 3 states battled a fire on Thursday, July 7, 2005, and Friday, July 8, 2005, in Greendale, Indiana at the Alternative Plastics Warehouse.
The warehouse contained a recycling facility when the fire occurred from accidental causes according to Indiana State Fire Marshal Roger Johnson.
The building is a 6-story structure formerly housing a distillery. There are no windows in the structure and there was a sprinkler system.
When firefighters first arrived they found an extensive fire on the first floor. Fire crews were hoping to contain the fire to the first floor but were unsuccessful.
Once the fire spread to upper floors the fire operations were switched to defensive operations and the plan then was to protect the adjacent building and reduce the environmental impact.
There was some health concerns for residents but the Environmental Protection Agency was on the scene and issued basic precautions.
Indiana State Fire Marshal Roger Johnson who was on the scene for most of the fire expressed a great deal of appreciation to the entire emergency response community for the cooperation, coordination and support.
Firefighters, police officers, emergency medical services, environmental specialists and many other government agencies came together to assist in containing this event as rapidly as possible.
There were about 100 employees on site when the fire began and they all evacuated safely.
