Oil cleanup ongoing after five-alarm fire burns Caseyville auto salvage yard

After firefighters from five departments doused the blaze that destroyed one of Black Lane Auto Parts’ buildings at 1880 Black Lane in Caseyville Thursday afternoon, emergency workers focused on sopping up waste oil that leaked from drums that ruptured during the blaze.

According to Caseyville firefighter Chuck Cohn, there was an explosion at about 1 p.m. followed by flames shooting 20 feet into the air, creating thick plumes of black smoke.

Business owner John McDaniels said he was in the main building when an employee told him there was a fire. “I grabbed a fire extinguisher but he ran into me on his way back in and said, ‘Don’t even bother, just call 911,’” McDaniels said.

Caseyville Fire Chief G. W. Scott said firefighters’ primary focus was to ensure the fire didn’t jump from the burning building to the larger main building where the business’s offices and lobby are housed less than 20 feet away to the north. The burning building, which McDaniels said is where workers take automobiles apart, was a total loss, but the main building has only minor heat damage.

Scott said a Caseyville firefighter was transported to a hospital for heat exhaustion. His condition was not immediately available Thursday afternoon. McDaniels said no employees were injured.

As an aerial hose continued to douse hot spots from above, St. Clair County Special Emergency Services crews arrived to contain an oil leak. The fire caused several 55-gallon drums of waste oil to rupture. The oil was then carried out of the building and into drainage ditches that surround the business.

Emergency workers built one sand dike in a ditch a few hundred feet east of the business along Forest Boulevard and two earthen dikes in ditches on each side of Black Lane south of the scene. St. Clair County Emergency Management Agency Director Herb Simmons said crews hoped to keep the oily water from seeping into a Caseyville Water Department pumping station near the scene of the fire.

Simmons said Thursday evening the cleanup efforts had been turned over to Illinois Environmental Protection Agency crews. As of 6:30 p.m., workers with Fenton, Mo.,-based Environmental Restoration were at the salvage yard and had placed several more absorbent booms in the nearby ditches and in areas on the grounds near the destroyed building.

An Environmental Restoration foreman at the scene said he was not allowed to speak to media.

A boil order was issued for some Fairview Heights residents, according to a tweet from the Fairview Heights Police Department. Residents who live along Bunkum Road between Interstate 64 and Interstate 70 were under the order as of 6 p.m. Thursday. It was unclear whether the boil order was issued due to a drop in water pressure brought on by the large volume of water used to put out the fire or because oil-tainted water had escaped the bounds of the containment area established by HAZMAT crews.

Illinois American Water employees and Caseyville Water Department personnel couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday evening.

This story was originally published July 23, 2015 at 2:11 PM with the headline "Oil cleanup ongoing after five-alarm fire burns Caseyville auto salvage yard."