Officials are evacuating homes and businesses after a major fire was reported at a chemical plant in Rockton, Illinois, on Monday morning.
The fire was reported around 7 a.m. at the Chemtool facility located at 1165 Prairie Hill Road in in Rockton.
Images captured at the scene show multiple semi trailers engulfed in flames at the dock at the facility.
The 4 alarm fire produced massive amounts of smoke that could be seen for 25 miles.
You can view video of the explosion below.
Authorities are evacuating all people within one mile of the Chemtool plant.
Chemtool describes itself as “a premium manufacturer of grease in the Americas.”
This entire portion of the building has now been destroyed. I took this photo just over an hour ago pic.twitter.com/iXv8tfi7Lr
— Maggie Polsean (@MaggiePolsean) June 14, 2021
WIFR reports that a firefighter was injured.
Chemtool issued the following statement:
At approximately 7 a.m. today, local emergency personnel responded to a fire at the Lubrizol Corporation’s Chemtool Facility in Rockton, Ill. We have confirmed all on site are safe and accounted for. Our concern right now is for the safety of all our employees and the surrounding community. As a precaution, authorities have evacuated residents in a one-mile radius of the site.
We do not yet know what caused this incident, but we will be working with local authorities and with our own risk management team to determine what happened and identify any corrective actions. We will share more details as they are known. We are grateful to our employees, first responders and safety forces responding to this incident.
This is a developing story.