Massive fire Ames Plant Parkersburg WV (zero national coverage?)
The fire was discovered or broke out about 12:30 am Saturday, Oct. 21, 2017. It has been burning since then. Thousands of people are affected by the smoke plume. I live in Marietta Ohio. I saw dark wisps against the blue sky and white clouds. I thought it was the heavy fog lifting from the rivers. But it was smoke from the fire, about 15 miles away. The wisps increased into a heavy black cloud aloft. It was visible all day. My son-in-law is a pilot and he saw the smoke from 30000 ft when he was flying to Phoenix on Saturday. In the evening, I looked out my kitchen window, which faces south and saw a black funnel-shaped cloud blotting out most of the sky. Not a tornado, but shaped like one. Smoke was still visible Sunday. The fire is still burning. The Ames plant building was used to manufacture tools, such as shovel heads. It was closed some years ago. The building was being used to 'house plastics and other material.' Local EPA issued a statement that the smoke wasn't toxic (seriously?) The local hospital has a pulmonary specialist on call. A public advisory said that the heavy rainwe are expecting today will keep the smoke from the yet burning fire low to the ground and the Red Cross opened a voluntary shelter in South Parkersburg. The advisory says to avoid being outdoors. The Wood County schools are closed today, Monday, Oct. 23, 2017. The story is developing. Here are links. Since the fire started Saturday, and the links are more than 24 hours old, I didn't post in LBN.
https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/cops_and_courts/fire-blazes-for-hours-at-old-ames-plant-in-parkersburg/article_962f0d04-ac14-521b-8a1a-0903fef7477f.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
He overwhelms the news media with his daily series of offenses, meanwhile there was another Gulf oil spill and I haven't seen any coverage at all... 
Waiting for Snott Pruitt to tell everybody that there's no potential health risk from thousands of tons of burning plastic.
The old Ames plant. I toured one of the buildings years ago when I was taking drafting classes. They manufactured or finished tool heads, such as shovels, there. That part was an old brick building, probably 100 years old by now. What's burning looks like a pole building. In one of the articles, there was a list of what was stored, but the company violated several environmental regulations, such as failing to apply and pay for a license to store products, submitting a plan for water run-off, and storing things where rain water could come in contact. So I am not very trusting that they were truthful about what was in the buildings. WV government has proven very lax with enforcing laws and making violations stick. The CEO of Massey got a year for his part in the deaths of 29 miners. Freedom Industries got a slap on the hand for contaminating the Elk River in 2014. IEI, which owns the burning factory had to pay $21000.00 of an $81,000.00 fine for violations. They got a 5 yr. extension, which would be revoked if they didn't get in compliance.
I hope this is handled differently. It seems to me that with all of the plants in the area, there should be a plan of action on both sides of the river. But except for updates on tv, not seeing any actions. I am signed up for local hazards, and have gotten no alerts.
Thanks for all of your insight. 
Interesting history. When these old buildings are repurposed, sometimes code enforcement gets lax. Unfortunately, since (I'm guessing) there was little or no employees working there, the immediate life hazard is minimal, so no one considers "what happens when this thing burns", so sprinklers were unlikely to be required.
It would be difficult to prove, but I would guess many people will suffer long-term health effects from this incident. A lot of that particulate will wind up either in people's lungs or in the food chain. Considering the enormous volume of smoke, I hope someone or some agency set up an air monitor to grab some samples of this stuff and do an analysis. Unfortunately some folks saying "it made me cough or dizzy" does not carry much weight.
In a good state, the primary environmental agency would have been there ASAP to do monitoring. 