No one was hurt in a spectacular fire Monday afternoon at the former Pew Oil Company office and gasoline storage facility in Noel, according to Brandon Barrett, fire chief.
Barrett said he had a report from a witness the fire began around one of four large gas storage tanks and not in the building. He added another witness said there were a couple of boys playing in the area prior to the start of the fire.
The business has been closed for over 10 years. Barrett said the owner, Bill Chamberlain, responded to the fire and told him the tanks had been drained of all the gas that was possible, but that they probably had a couple of inches in the bottom. Barrett said he was told the tanks were 2,500 gallon capacity.
Barrett said those "couple of inches" could correspond to several hundred gallons of fuel. He said the pop-off valves on the tanks worked and vented pressure when the tanks reached the potential to be explosive.
The Noel Fire Department was assisted by fire departments from Southwest City and Pineville. Several nearby residents were evacuated as a precautionary measure.
At Tuesday night's Noel City Council meeting, Alderman Faye Davis asked Barrett if the Environmental Protection Agency or the Missouri Department of Resources had been contacted.
Barrett replied that DNR was aware of the incident and had contacted him Tuesday afternoon. He said a representative told him they planned to inspect the site in the near future.
Davis questioned whether the city or DNR will be responsible for making sure the site is cleaned up correctly. Barrett said he believed DNR will take care of it.
The council agreed to send a certified letter to Chamberlain asking him to secure that property and also the former Riverside Station. Chamberlain owns the property where the former business was located, which has had all the doors torn off and the inside demolished since it closed recently.
General News on 07/10/2014