Batteries exploding in burning abandoned Illinois building – KIRO 7 News Seattle

CHICAGO – (AP) – Lithium batteries exploded overnight in a burning former paper mill in northern Illinois that officials believed had been abandoned for a long time and fire officials have decided to let the fire burn out fearing the attempt to extinguish it could cause further explosions.

The fire that broke out in Morris on Tuesday prompted city officials to order the evacuation of 3,000 to 4,000 people from about 950 nearby homes, a school, church and small businesses.

When thick, black smoke continued to rise from the building on Wednesday, Police Chief Alicia Steffes said the evacuation order would remain in force until at least 9 p.m. and “possibly extended”.

Police are stationed throughout the area to prevent people from entering, although anyone who can prove they live there can return to get essential medication, she said.

Fire chief Tracey Steffes said the previous air quality tests had “come back positive,” but warned that changing weather conditions and other factors could lead to a deterioration in air quality.

Mayor Chris Brown urged anyone with breathing problems to see their doctor.

The fire chief said he was gathering information from fire departments and other experts on fighting the fire in a building that – to the surprise of his department and other city authorities – stored nearly 100 tons of lithium batteries ranging in size from cell phone batteries to large car batteries.

Steffes’ firefighters stopped using water to fight the fire minutes after they arrived when they discovered the batteries, as water and foam can cause batteries to explode. And he said that although he had heard some ideas about how to fight the fire – road salt was suggested – he would not send crews to fight the fire because of the unknowns about the contents.

“I don’t know 100% what has been stored in this building, just what they tell us about what has been stored in this building,” he said.

Furthermore, Steffes said that while his department and other authorities had fought fires in buildings with lithium batteries, he had not yet found anyone with fires that involved so many batteries. He said the overnight battery explosions could be heard all over the city.

The mayor said the city did not know the building was being used to store batteries until it caught fire and that he knew very little about the company they owned.

“The company’s name is Superior Battery … and we didn’t know it existed until yesterday afternoon,” said Brown. Apparently, no one else in town hall did either because there is no record of a business license or communication between the company and a city council, he said.

Steffe barely hid his anger about the great danger his firefighters were in and said he couldn’t trust the company’s information.

“We had no idea that they were doing business there,” said Steffes, adding that a company employee told him that they had been living in the building for about a year. Steffes said the paper mill had been empty for decades.

No information was immediately available about Superior Battery. The fire chief said company representatives had not been invited to the press conference on Wednesday.

The mayor said police will conduct an investigation into the storage of the batteries and that other agencies, including the state fire marshal and the Illinois attorney general, have been contacted.

Morris is located about 115 kilometers southwest of Chicago.

The Morris fire occurred two weeks after an explosion and massive fire at a chemical plant near Rockton, an Illinois town on the Wisconsin border, and forced the evacuation of hundreds of homes for several days. Nobody at the plant or in the surrounding community was injured in the June 13 fire, which officials later discovered had accidentally started during maintenance.

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