SOIL BEING REMOVED IN CLEANUP OF RAILROAD-TIE FIRE

VANDUSER -- The cleanup continues at Sikeston Creosoting, the site of a fire that burned for five hours Tuesday.

The fire destroyed the building where workers soaked railroad ties with creosote but spared the company's offices and stacks of untreated railroad ties in a five-acre field.

Firefighters from 13 departments and four counties hauled in water in tankers and soaked the burning creosote for hours. Employees at the plant used earthmoving equipment to build dikes to contain the water flowing out of the fire and appeared to contain the creosote that mixed with the water, said Jackson Bostic, environmental emergency specialist with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

The firefighters' main strategy was to keep the fire from spreading and to keep the employees, the people living nearby and the firefighters safe from the toxic smoke emanating from the fire, said John Sachen, a Scott County firefighter training officer who was on the scene.

Fortunately, no homes were close enough that occupants were exposed to any of the smoke, Sachen said.

Bostic said the sandy soil appeared to filter most of the creosote out of the water as it seeped through it.

Employees of Delta Environmental, the company contracted to clean up the site, removed more than 200 cubic yards of soil. "As they were cutting down more than a foot, they were getting out of the color" of the creosote, Bostic said.

Delta sealed the soil in plastic as it excavated it, he said.

Bostic went to nearby homes and took samples of drinking water to send to a lab to check for contamination, he said. Today, the DNR employees plan to take samples of groundwater, Bostic said.

Sikeston Creosoting, located on Route Z east of Vanduser, treats railroad ties with creosote preservative and ships them all over North America. Or it did until Tuesday afternoon.

The fire apparently started shortly after noon when a worker was cutting a bolt with a blow torch and an ember got into a tank of creosote, officials said.