Videographer Lance Wheeler, who invariably is first on the scene of Columbia County emergencies, and whose indispensable work appears regularly on CBS6 and other Albany news stations, sent along links to three important videos he shot of fires at TCI—two from last week, and a third from the company’s January fire.
The first of these is particularly revelatory, as it appears to have been taken in the early stages of the fire on Wednesday night. At some point, my understanding is around midnight, any press was advised to leave the site for safety, so this does not depict any of the explosions and fireballs which were captured in photos later that night by responders. Reportedly all such responders were moved back to Kinderhook Toyota around 4 am, again for safety.
Some initial comments appear below it, followed by the other two videos:
Some notes and revelations from the above video:
- A first responder notes that they were called to the scene by an “alarm activation.”
- At the beginning of the video, there is thick, heavy black smoke billowing from parts of the roof and several windows, as well as a hole cut in a garage door, through which something is being sprayed inside. But at that stage, there is no visible flame.
- Wheeler asks, “What do you assume is on fire there?” A fire chief responds that “they dismantle transformers here” and also cites “mineral oil” and “some other chemicals in there that we’ve been working on.”
- In response to a question about their “biggest concern” at that stage, the response is “chemicals burning in the building at this time,” including a “sodium substance in there that is volatile.”
- It is stated that it’s “better to let it burn,” that there are “toxic fumes going up into the air,” and that they’re “going to let this die down a little bit” with a prognosis of that taking “a couple hours.”
- Several minutes in, one starts to see more intense columns of flame pouring up the side of the building, eerily reminiscent of smoke licking up the sides of the Trade Towers before they collapsed on 9/11; around the 4:41 mark, bright orange flames begin to appear.
- Initially it is indicated that residents are being evacuated from houses within a half-mile from the site, then one mile from it.
- At around the 6 minute mark, one begins to see intense orange flame pouring from one end of the building; by the 7:30 mark, Wheeler zooms in on a large ring of fire forming outside the building, as if some there is some flammable substance on the ground.
- At the 8 minute mark, one hears a voice indistinctly saying “evacuating” as one end of the building starts to collapse in, and flames start coming out the front and roof of the other end of it. By the 9 minute mark, the fire is a true inferno, with columns of fire going up into the air.
- One also sees a brief shot of a Hazmat Weatherlog device being erected. According to one vendor, these “are designed to provide first responders with important real-time information for monitoring and responding to hazardous material incidents,” ennabling them “to monitor plume dispersion... The software was developed for front-line chemical emergency planners and responders [and] helps in evaluating and predicting dispersion patterns.” The devices include a radiation detector, and can be monitored remotely a distance from a disaster site.
- At 9:45, one sees a shot of a County hazmat truck, then a firefighter being hosed down and scrubbed with some sort of detergent or soap, as if there is a concern about contamination on his skin or clothing.
- At the YouTube site where this is hosted, there are some bitter arguments among anonymous commenters about what was sprayed into the building—water or foam, and what protocols were followed.
- By the end of this first video, the building is fully engaged in fire, and crews evidently (and no doubt wisely) decided to back off for safety.
Below are the other two videos posted to YouTube by Lance, starting with a helicopter video of the TCI site from the next day, showing the building almost entirely burned to the ground but still emitting an intensely black plume:
One can see in the above video large, dark, pool-like formations around the remains of the building, but it is not clear if that is simply charred debris, or the result of attempts to douse the fire, or (worst case scenario) spills of uncombusted materials that were stored in the building.
Last up is Lance’s video of January’s (much less catastrophic) fire at TCI:
Note: There were light, occasional rains throughout the late afternoon on Sunday, which may complicate any attempts to test for any toxic residues of this fire tomorrow.
