Massive NY Fire Sending Plumes Of Smoke Into Mass.
WEST GHENT, N.Y. (CBS/AP) — Massachusetts emergency officials were sending crews to towns on the New York border over concerns from a massive fire at a transformer recycling company.
Firefighters are spraying foam on the stubborn fire that engulfed the building in New York's Hudson Valley.
Officials in Columbia County, New York have declared a state of emergency for the town of Ghent, where the fire broke out Wednesday night at TCI of New York, 25 miles south of Albany. Police say the firefighters are spraying foam Thursday morning because they don't know exactly what is burning.
The easterly wind has carried the plume of smoke from the fire to toward the state border.
WBZ-TV Meteorologist Melissa Mack Details The Track Of The Smoke Plume
Officials are advising residents within a 15-mile radius to remain indoors with windows closed and air conditioning units off. That includes the Massachusetts communities of Southern Berkshire County east and south of Alford and Great Barrington.
Emergency officials say tests are being conducted to determine if the debris was hazardous.
Firefighters at the scene last night described a series of explosions and a fireball rising hundreds of feet into the sky.
Massachusetts has dispatched its own group of personnel from the Department of Environmental Protection, Department of Public Health, Department of Fire Services and National Guard to determine the impacts of the plume.
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