VANDUSER TIE PLANT DESTROYED; SMOKE COULD BE SEEN FROM CAPE GIRARDEAU

VANDUSER -- Fire Tuesday at a wood-treatment plant burned for five hours, sending a plume of thick black smoke into the air that was visible from 30 miles away.

The smoke closed Route Z in Scott County for two hours, reduced the water pressure in Vanduser and destroyed a building where 15 people worked.

By nightfall, the fire at Sikeston Creosoting near Vanduser was only smoldering with the black smoke reduced to white steam.

No one was injured although the smoke was a potentially powerful irritant. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources is monitoring the site to minimize groundwater contamination.

Sikeston Creosoting, situated on Route Z east of Vanduser, treats railroad ties with creosote, a preservative, and ships them all over North America.

The fire apparently started shortly after noon when a worker was cutting a bolt with a blowtorch and an ember got into a tank of creosote, said Jackson Bostic, an environmental emergency specialist with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. Bostic was on the scene to monitor the site for possible environmental damage.

A coal tar derivative, creosote is highly flammable.

Workers on the scene said only one or two people were on site when the fire started because most had left for lunch. They came back to find the building engulfed in flames.

The smoke was so thick an observer at the entrance to the plant could only get occasional glimpses of the flames. Motorists on Interstate 55 in Cape Girardeau and students at Notre Dame High School in Cape Girardeau reported seeing the smoke.

Firefighters from at least half a dozen fire districts fought the blaze for hours, with tankers trucking water from several places. Initially the tankers went to Vanduser, but then to other sources when their demand was so great it reduced the town's water pressure. Tanker trucks had to pass the fire by and go to Morley and nearby irrigation ditches for the water.

The smoke shot out in a spiral toward the east, but rose fast enough that the fumes did not affect people downwind.

Smoke from burning creosote can cause considerable irritation to skin nasal passages and any other surface it comes in contact with, said Cherri Baysinger Daniel, health and safety officer with the Department of Natural Resources.

The Scott County Sheriff's Department closed Route Z from 3 to 5 p.m.

Although it took them hours to put out the fire, firefighters successfully kept it from spreading to a nearby tank of diesel fuel and the stacks of railroad ties covering more than five acres next to the building, Bostic said.

Bostic said the water used to douse the flames mixed with the creosote and spread over the site. He said the state will hire a contractor to monitor the site to make sure the surface contamination doesn't spread into nearby streams or the water table.

Speaking from the site at 6 p.m., Bostic said two walls from the building appeared to be collapsing. He said firefighters there judged the building to be a total loss.