Watch TX Firefighters Tackle Recycling Facility Fire

Clouds of black smoke were visible from Fort Worth Thursday as more than 100 firefighters worked to put out a massive blaze at a Richland Hills foam recycling facility that injured at least one person.

The five-alarm fire, reported at about 12:30 p.m. at Advanced Foam Recycling's headquarters and manufacturing facility, has prompted questions from residents about how the plumes of smoke might affect air pollution and public health.

When reached Thursday afternoon, Richland Hills Police Captain Sheena McEachran said air quality is not a concern at this time.

"Fortunately this is at an industrial business, so there are no residential properties nearby," McEachran said by phone. "The smoke right now is all going toward the south, which is again away from the residential area."

Gary Rasp, a spokesman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said regional staff members are responding to the fire and conducting off-site air monitoring. The commission sent employees to conduct similar air testing during the Grand Prairie Poly-America plastics plant fire in August.

Firefighters from multiple departments battled a large fire that erupted at a Richland Hills, TX, recycling facility Thursday.

"We will support local officials and the incident commander based on their needs," Rasp wrote in an email.

Since its founding in 1997, Advanced Foam Recycling has processed polyurethane foam and has grown to become one of the country's largest scrap foam suppliers, according to its website. A reporter was not able to reach the company by phone, and Advanced Foam Recycling officials did not immediately respond to an email.

Polyurethane foams burn rapidly and produce "intense heat, dense smoke and gases" that are toxic and irritating, according to an information bulletin published by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration. The most significant gas produced is usually carbon monoxide, along with chemicals like benzene, toluene, acetone, acetaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide, according to OSHA.

Melanie Sattler, a civil engineering professor at UT Arlington who has studied air pollution for more than 20 years, said those chemicals are classified as hazardous air pollutants and are generally toxic at lower concentrations than other chemicals.

There are many factors involved in determining whether pollutants will linger in the air long enough to cause significant public health impacts, Sattler said. Local officials have to consider how much of a pollutant has been released at the site and whether atmospheric conditions will dilute, or reduce, the amount of chemicals in the air.

"If we have stronger winds, that promotes dilution, and if we have a sunny day, we can have more thermal mixing of pollutants, and that can promote dispersion," Sattler said. "Generally, the farther away you are, the more chance there is for dilution to occur."

The health effects are pollutant-specific, and depend on how long people are exposed to a certain pollutant, Sattler added. In the case of a fire, officials look for short-term health impacts because people living in the area will not be exposed to these pollutants long-term, she said.

Sattler can't speak to the specific weather conditions or pollutants released in the air in Richland Hills, but said it is possible to make a general statement about the distance between industrial areas and neighborhoods. The facility in Richland Hills is within two miles from neighborhoods in Hurst and Fort Worth, according to Google Maps.

"If an industrial area is a really far distance away from a residential area, then, you know, there's kind of a common sense level that we're not going to have acute impacts," Sattler said. "But there are a lot of factors involved."

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