CLINTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. – The fire chief provided an update on injuries, damage, and the state of the investigation into explosions and a massive fire in Macomb County.
Clinton Township fire Chief Tim Duncan spoke at 8 a.m. Tuesday, March 5, to explain what officials have learned so far about what happened.
Calls about explosions
Duncan said the department received its first call about an explosion just before 9 p.m. Monday, and the battalion chief immediately put a call for a second alarm, which allowed nearby departments to help Clinton Township.
“The report that came in initially is they thought there were shots fired,” Duncan said. “Obviously, that was just due to the explosions and the metals hitting buildings and hitting off the ground.
“I responded from my house that’s over by 16 (Mile Road) and Jefferson (Avenue), so literally about 7-8 miles away. At that point, when I left the building, I could hear the explosions that far away. I’m thinking to myself, ‘Hopefully this isn’t what I’m going to.’ Within a mile down the street, I realized, ‘This is what I’m going to.’”
He said the explosions were shaking his car on the way. When firefighters arrived, they tried to approach the fire, but it was too dangerous.
“They were trying to approach it, and obviously, with the explosions, there was absolutely no way that we could do that,” Duncan said.
He said the battalion chief made the correct decision to back out. Some firefighters got as close as they possibly could to try to stop the fire from spreading to other buildings, Duncan said.
What caused the fire?
Duncan said the fire began at a company called “Goo,” which is a distributor to the vaping community in the area.
“They had literally received a truckload of butane within the past week, and they still had over half of that left,” Duncan said. “So this is what you’re seeing strewn throughout the area -- all the canisters, which you had nitrous, you had butane, and then they had some other products in there.”
Officials believe the fire started before the explosions, but the exact source of the fire is not yet clear.
“The fire typically would have started,” Duncan said. “You get that product heating up. All of a sudden, it’s going to blow up. You’ve got that vessel that’s getting more pressurized. You’ll see some of these products where the actual top is blown off and the canister went up like a missile, and then you have other ones that blew up in place and then came over. So you’re seeing a variety of full canisters and then ones that are totally torn apart and basically shrapnel going through the air.”
Duncan said it’s still not safe to closely investigate the cause of the fire.
“It’s still too unstable, too unsafe for our people to get over there on the scene, so we’re probably going to have to bring another engine over here to kind of suppress the smoke and stuff,” Duncan said. “Obviously, safety is crucial for our people.”
Police don’t believe propane was a major factor. They think the primary chemicals that caught fire were butane, nitrous, and lighter fluid.
“We believe if there was propane, it was minimal,” Duncan said. “We don’t think that that was a major issue in there. Obviously, there is equipment that would have propane tanks, along that line. So we can’t rule out that there was some amount of propane, but we think that was on the minimal side.”
Owners of the company estimated there were 100,000 vape pens inside the building.
Teenager killed, firefighter hurt
Duncan said a 19-year-old man was hurt while the fire burned on Monday night, and he died from his injuries around 4 a.m. Tuesday.
“The person was essentially about a quarter-mile down the road here and did suffer an injury from one of these flying canisters,” Duncan said.
Duncan said the circumstances surrounding the man’s death aren’t completely clear.
“I believe he was just observing,” Duncan said.
One firefighter was injured by a flying canister that went through the window of a fire truck, Duncan said.
“He initially (was hit by) some glass, and then he was affected by part of the shrapnel that came through,” Duncan said. “But that was our concern, is that he might have a closed head injury. But he was up and talking and acting fairly normal when we were talking to him last night, but we wanted to be sure. We got him over to the hospital. They checked him out and everything worked out well.”
Duncan said the firefighter was quickly released from the hospital.
More on business involved
Officials from “Goo” were interviewed Monday night by fire officials and ATF agents, Duncan said. ATF agents will remain involved in the investigation.
“They’re going to be digging into, essentially, what happened here,” Duncan said.
The last inspection at the building, which took place in September 2022, didn’t show this many materials, according to Duncan.
“We’re still looking into the legality of everything that’s in there,” Duncan said. “I think, a lot of times, the industry’s just not -- there’s not as much oversight as we probably should have with some of these situations.”
Initial reports on Monday night suggested that the fire was burning at Select Distributors. Duncan said Goo and Select Distributors are “one and the same.”
“They have the company called ‘Goo,’ and then they’re also a distributor to the industry,” Duncan said. “There was some thought that this was a marijuana dispensary. Obviously, Clinton Township doesn’t allow that. So what ends up being is that they actually supply the industry in the region with these gasses. The vape pens -- having over 100,000 vape pens in there -- so that’s why there was this amount of product in that building.
“You have ‘Goo,’ and they have certain products that they probably sell out of there, and then you have the Select Distributors side, which, I believe, is the one that’s supplying the gasses to the local area for what they do with their dispensaries, or they’re selling them the pens or the gasses needed to handle this industry.”
Duncan said Goo and Select Distributors share the building.
Fire trucks, police cars damaged
Duncan said emergency responders from Roseville, St. Clair Shores, Sterling Heights, Selfridge, Mt. Clemens, and Harrison Township, as well as the county HAZMAT team, were involved Monday night.
He believes there were about 50-60 firefighters and dozens of police officers on scene when the fire was at its peak, in addition to other emergency officials.
“We had three of our vehicles that were damaged,” Duncan said. “Two of them were essentially tire issues trying to get in and out of the area. The other one had some pretty extensive damage from this flying debris. We had a number of police cars that were damaged.”
He’s not sure if the truck that was damaged by debris can be fixed.
Environmental concerns?
Duncan said there was initial concern about air quality due to the huge plume of smoke. But officials tested the air quality and “everything came back fine.”
“Our DPW personnel was out last night to check the water area, anything that might be seeping in,” Duncan said. “That was good last night, so they’ll continue to monitor that. Obviously, we don’t want any of this product leeching into the water system, so that’s one of our main concerns, is just the environment and everything that’s going on, so we’ll be continuing throughout the day to monitor the situation.”
The lack of wind helped firefighters keep the flames from spreading, Duncan said. Rain forecasted for Tuesday will help with smoke suppression, but it will also hamper the investigation.
Intensity of fire
Duncan said this is the biggest fire he’s seen in his 25-year career.
“Just a tremendous amount of fire,” Duncan said. “In my 25 years, I’ve been on a few big fires. This, by far, was the biggest one that I’ve ever seen. Just the funneling of the fire, the smoke going up. Had the wind been bad, we would have had multiple buildings that would have been on fire. We would have lost several of these buildings -- the fire was that intense.”
He doesn’t believe there’s any current danger to the community, but they’re still keeping people at a safe distance. An isolated explosion was heard around 7:15 a.m. Tuesday.
You can watch Duncan’s full update below.