Police are urging residents to avoid the area of 15 Mile Road at Groesbeck Highway due to a massive fire at a distribution plant in Clinton Township.
The fire occurred on Monday night (March 4) at Select Distributors in the 19100 bock of 15 Mile Road according to police.
Officials say the impact of the fire is being felt as far as Mount Clemens.
Neighbors say the loud explosion, which sounds like fireworks, shook the ground in the surrounding areas.
Officials say 15 fire trucks are on the scene and receiving assistance from neighboring fire departments.
Officials say the owner property owner notified police that there was a 10,000-gallon diesel fuel tank on the property.
Police have brought out helmets to protect the officials due to the shrapnel falling from the sky.
Neighbor Robert David said, “It started over at Goo Smoke Shop, and then it went outrageous as smoke was everywhere. The fire and wind has been spreading, and it’s catching on IDC (Industries) and Grant Industries is starting to catch on fire now. It’s getting out of control.”
“I looked to my backside over here towards the Groesbeck area, and that’s when I started to realize the flames were happening,” said neighbor Korey Dixon. “I’m an area worker, and knowing this particular town, I knew that we are in something serious because of the fact that that area should never have that kind of noise. Lots of fires were starting to take place. A lot of buildings were seemingly starting to accelerate the inferno. With the sounds that we were hearing, you could really pretty much see it becoming catastrophic.”
Residents were told to take cover amid the falling ash and debris.
“It started getting louder and louder, and I started seeing some red flames shooting up, and I thought, ‘That’s not just fireworks, that’s a fire,’” said a woman. “And it started subsiding for about 40 minutes or so, and then I went back into the house, and it started up again. I thought it was Armageddon. The explosion was going so high in the air that I was afraid it was going to start coming down on the neighborhoods.”
“Well, I went in because some of the explosions were really extreme, and the amount of smoke made me think of how it must have been some bad chemicals in there,” said a man. “I didn’t know what was in the canister that Goo was selling. A lot of drug addicts were seen picking them up, and that was partially what their biggest customer base was.”
“What was shot out, and what you were hearing was the black canisters hitting the ground,” said Sam.
Neighbors were describing the area as a “War zone” as the canisters were being found miles away from the actual explosion.
Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel said the explosion started around 9 p.m., and Clinton Township police responded, trying to figure out what was happening.
“It was some type of Co2 or propane explosions were taking place in the facility, and again, it was just some type of continuous explosions as well as the fire, so it took a while for the firefighters to get in there to distinguish the fire because we had to know what’s going on,” said Hackel.
As of 11:10 p.m., the fire has been tamed as the fire department and three police agencies trying court off the area.
Hackel said there are eight different fire departments at the plant, and it took awhile to figure out what was going on. He said the fire is contained.
“Their concern right now is -- obviously they’re taming the fire, but now, what’s going on with that air quality?” Hackel said. “We have a HAZMAT unit that’s out trying to test the air quality so we can get further updates.”
Hackel said emergency management is assessing the situation and is ready to react accordingly.
“Most people realize when there’s an immediate situation like that taking place, you have your police, fire, and your EMS. Most people see that response happening. What they don’t see is what goes on with emergency management. They have a good team over there in Clinton Township, as well as the county’s emergency management that really has come together to try to figure out what they need to do, and if it comes to getting utilities shut off, they’re working on that while the fire department’s responding, while police are there.
“So all that is taking place, as well as what you just mentioned, reaching out to the schools to say there’s something that’s going on in the area, and other businesses, as well as residents.
“So emergency management is that organization that starts right away once there is some kind of major event taking place, that does all of those things we’re talking about. So there is conversation taking place with schools as they’re trying to test the air quality, as well.”
---> Here’s everything we know so far about explosions, fire in Macomb County