Firefighters extinguish chemical fire - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

Just west of where football fans began to gather downtown for a long morning of tailgating, a black plume of smoke filled the sky.

"Crews could see the smoke as they pulled out of the firehouses," explained Wayne Township Fire Department Public information officer Craig Peoples.

The origin was an out of control fire gaining steam at Heritage Environmental services in the 7900 block of West Morris Street.

"This is a chemical processing, storage, destruction type facility. They do a lot with chemicals," said Peoples.

It took more than 100 firefighters from several departments more than an hour and a half to knock out the two-alarm fire inside a storage facility on the backside of the property.

While firefighters were decontaminated as a precaution, the public was never at any risk.

Peoples says, "There was no risk of anything being discharged, released, spilled from the plant, they have an onsite containment of all the runoff water underneath the plant."

According to Wayne Township firefighters, they were called to another fire here at Heritage Environmental back in July. That time it involved one of their transport trucks.

Peoples says the plant has a good track record. According to a check with the EPA, there have been no major violations here in recent years but no one with the plant would comment on Sundays fire or cause.

"This plant is good. Like I said, they have been here for a very long time and they know what they are doing when it comes to spills," says Peoples.

Air quality will be monitored by the Marion County Health Department to check for contamination.