Conveyor belt starts blaze at port
A Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office hellicopter takes off after touching down in front of the gate to the Pendola Point Terminal of the Port of Tampa. [DANIEL WALLACE | Times]
Hillsborough County Fire Rescue is trying to contain a three-alram fire on a conveyor belt at the Kinder Morgan building at the Port of Tampa.
Twenty fire trucks, several fire rescue boats, a helicopter and more than 45 fire fighters are currently at the blaze at 4310 Pendola Point, said Capt. Ray Yeakley, a spokesman for fire rescue.
Kinder Morgan, a dry and liquid bulk handling company, works with a lot of hazardous materials, Yeakley said, so emergency responders have sealed off the scene until they can determine what is burning.
No one has been injured in the fire, though workers are present at the scene.
According to Capt. Bruce Delk of fire rescue, workers were unloading ammonium nitrate from a railroad car onto a conveyor belt when the belt caught fire. That conveyor belt, which runs through several buildings, ignited another conveyor belt and spread the fire to all thre of the 50-foot-tall, shed-like structures, Delk explained.
Fire officials have involved the U.S. Coast Guard and the Hillsborough Environmental Protection Commission because of possible safety issues with the chemical runoff pouring into the channel, Delk said.
Kinder Morgan works with ammonium nitrate and potassium nitrate, which are used in fertilizers, and acid that controls the pH balance in water. Delk said those chemicals could have had hazardous effects.
"We don’t know what it will do so that’s why we called the EPC," he added.
For more details, check back with This Just In.
–Robbyn Mitchell, Times staff writer