Firefighters from five departments fought the blaze for two hours before managing to extinguish the fire. A road nearby was closed as the fire neared the tree line near the plant.
A miles high smoke plume from the fire could be seen for miles and even showed up on radar. No injuries were reported due to the fire.
Alchemix works with a chemical known as nitrocellulose, according to a local NBC-affiliated television station. Nitrocellulose is composed of nitric esters of cellulose and a highly flammable compound that is the main ingredient of modern gunpowder.
In the past week, two large fires were reported in northwest Indiana, one at a steel mill in Burns Harbor and one at a power plant in Wheatfield.
On Thursday, an explosion was reported at the ArcelorMittal steel mill in Burns Harbor. Video from the scene showed the explosion showering the mill with large chunks of burning shrapnel, according to The Times of Northwest Indiana. No injuries were reported in the incident.
A spokesman for ArcelorMittal stated that the fire was caused by a stove dome failure. Mike Millsap, director of District 7 of the United Steelworkers union, stated, “We do not know what caused it or the how much damage was done. We may not know until tomorrow or the next day. We are very fortunate that there was nobody in the immediate area.”
Later on Thursday, a fire broke out at the NIPSCO R.M. Schahfer Generating Station in Wheatfield. A portion of the facility was evacuated and no injuries were reported. The cause of the incident is under investigation.
On Sunday, a large blaze broke out on the USS Bonhomme Richard in San Diego. An explosion was reported about two hours after the fire broke out. The blaze took four days to extinguish. The cause of the fire is unclear. The fire was the worst in-port disaster for the US Navy since the 2012 fire on the attack submarine Miami, which was later found to have been arson.
The Iranian Mehr News Agency questioned on Saturday why international media did not raise the same questions about the fires and explosions in the USA, as were raised concerning similar incidents in Iran.
