MAXVILLE, Fla. – Firefighters from three agencies battled a fire Wednesday morning at an asphalt plant near the intersection of U.S. 301 and County Road 218 in northwest Clay County.
A second alarm was called just after 9 a.m. to request additional resources, including Jacksonville Fire-Rescue and the Bradford County Fire Department. The fire was under control within the hour and no injuries were reported.
A JFRD crew was the first to arrive at the scene.
News4Jax was told that a tank containing 18,000 gallons of asphalt at the Anderson Columbia plant was burning, sending up black smoke that could be seen for miles.
Clay County's fire chief, Loren Mock, called this a three-dimensional fire, meaning that the fire was spreading out from the tank as well as vertically in the tank.
"A house fire, you are going to attack it with water and control it. It's something that you know," Mock said. "A three-dimensional fire, if uncontrolled, will have more failure of the equipment around it. And that fire, which is just spewing out of control, will eventually go on the ground and start flowing across the ground as that tank leaks out."
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection was called because of concern about contaminants in the runoff. A spokesman said a private company would come out to test the soil and forward the results to DEP.
IMAGES: 2-alarm fire at asphalt plant
Records show that Anderson Columbia has been fined five times by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration over the past 10 years. The company was fined a total of $48,000 over that period for violations found at various road projects and during an inspection at a Lake City plant. There are no records of any violations involving the plant in Maxville.