A fire broke out Tuesday night around 8:21pm at a trash facility in Orrington, causing Orrington Fire and Rescue to direct everyone in the surrounding areas to keep their windows closed due to the significant smoke that has been generated.
Although the fire has now been contained, officials have said that it will take several days for it to be fully extinguished.
An investigation as to the fire’s cause is still underway, but initial reports suggest that it was started by a lithium-ion battery.
According to WABI TV, the fire was initially so big that its glow could be seen from across the river. A photo provided to the Maine Wire showed the glow on the horizon visible from nearby Hampden.
As of about 5am Wednesday, crews were still battling the flames from outside the building due to concerns about its structural integrity. Because of this, they were unable remove a nearly 40-foot-high “decomposing” trash pile from inside.
A statement from the Orrington Fire and Rescue Department — authored by Assistant Fire Chief Chad Bean — explained that the “entire tipping floor area of the building [was] burning with fire through the roof of a 200 x 400 steel building” when they arrived on scene Tuesday night.
Resources were brought in from a number of surrounding towns, including Brewer, Bangor, Holden, Eddington, Dedham, Hampden, Hermon, Levant, and Bucksport to help fight the fire.
Assistant Chief Bean goes on to say that the fire is creating a “significant environmental hazard” as it continues to burn.
The Department will be working with the owners of the facility, the Town of Orrington, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and the Penobscot County Emergency Management to find a way to safely extinguish the fire in full.
They have directed everyone in Orrington, Brewer, Bangor, Bucksport, and Hampden to keep their windows closed at this time due to the significant amount of smoke being created by the fire.
According to WMTW, officials have said that the material involved in the fire remains from when the facility was still owned by Penobscot Energy Recovery Company (PERC), prior to being sold to Eagle Point Energy Center (EPEC).
They went on to suggest that PERC had “improperly disposed” of roughly 8,000 tons of solid waste before being foreclosed on in May of last year. In conjunction with the Town of Orrington, EPEC has since spent more than half a million dollars “remediating” the site.
The Maine DEP issued a statement late Wednesday morning regarding the fire, saying that they do “not know of any specific human health or air quality impacts at this time,” but recommends that those “who may be downwind” from the fire keep their windows closed at this time.
They are in the process of “assembling personnel and assets from the Department’s Air Bureau to monitor the air quality in the surrounding area adjacent” to the fire.
An EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] air monitoring team is on route after the Maine DEP requested earlier this morning that the EPA augment this air monitoring effort,” the statement continued.
The Maine DEP indicated that they would share air sampling results as soon as they become available.
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