Thursday, October 20th 2022, 5:20 pm
A warehouse in Ninnekah is still burning more than 24 hours after the first spark.
It's now the third time a warehouse in the area caught on fire.
Officials said one company, Bordwine Development, is responsible for illegally storing hand sanitizer.
A man who works next to the location of the fire said when he saw smoke rise over those trees, he knew exactly what was happening in Ninnekah.
The smell from Wednesday's fire that wafted through the Ninnekah air gave that man, Stoney Stamper and others in the area deja vu.
"I think everybody pretty much had an idea of what it was. It smelled the same, had that chemical smell to it," Stamper said.
He said that scent is burned into his memory from the last time hand sanitizer stock caught fire in early August. 1.5 million gallons of the alcohol-based sanitizer smoldered for days, just a stone's throw up the road.
"Originally we just saw the smoke. It's only a half mile from Heart Trailer Manufacturing," Stamper explained. He added, "I did go by and look at it later in the afternoon. I was watching it on Facebook though and you could see that there were still pallets around the building that had hand sanitizer on them that hadn't caught fire."
Now, there are three total sanitizer fires in the Chickasha-Ninnekah area officials traced back to Bordwine Development.
The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) fined the company $6.6 million for the August fire.
The secondhand sanitizer fire caught shortly after the first. It was a small one, put out quickly. It was known that Bordwine stored the sanitizer at the Ninnekah site, when the first two sparked up.
"Well, they were supposed to come up with a plan and submit to DEQ on disposal," Grady County Emergency Management's Director Dale Thompson explained.
Bordwine had come up with a 30-day plan to clear the site and had 15 days to draw it up. Both deadlines have lapsed.
Bordwine’s development owner Brannan Bordwine said they couldn't touch the site because the DEQ had control over the site and wouldn't let them remove any of the sanitizer.
The DEQ responded to that accusation with this statement: "DEQ required Mr. Bordwine to submit a proper removal and disposal plan. The plan submitted was not acceptable or legal. As such, the material was still on site."
So, the sanitizer stayed.
"We responded with numerous fire departments because we knew it had the potential to be a large fire," said Director Thompson. Stamper added, "We were a little bit concerned that maybe that might make the fire get bigger or something might explode."
Bordwine's owner requested a hearing that is scheduled for next week
The State Fire Marshall said they hope to get into the grounds to investigate a cause by Friday at the earliest.
A cause for the August fire hasn't been determined, but the State Fire Marshall said it was not accidental, but they cannot confirm it was set intentionally either.
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