One person is dead after an industrial fire and hundreds of explosions north of Detroit sent “fireballs” and “shrapnel” into neighborhoods as far as a mile away. The fire burned for hours Monday night, March 4, launching nitrous-oxide and butane canisters into the air.
During a news conference Tuesday morning, the Clinton Township fire chief said that a 19-year-old was fatally struck by a projectile from the explosion while he was a quarter mile down the road.
“Just a tremendous amount of fire,” Clinton Fire Chief Tim Duncan said. “In my 25 years, I’ve been on a few big fires – This by far was the biggest one I’ve ever seen.”
Police reported that the fire occurred at a building shared by Goo and Select Distributors — these businesses list smoke shop products such as nitrous oxide, CBD and electronic vapes.
“We did find out that it was this company called ‘Goo,’” Duncan said. “They are a distributor to the vaping community in the area. They received a truckload of butane within the past week and they still had over half of that left. This is what you’re seeing strewn throughout the area. You had nitrous, you had butane and they had some other products in there.”
Due to the storage of combustible materials, authorities are asking for assistance from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in the investigation.
Four people were inside the building when the fire started, but they managed to escape without injuries. Emergency management has sent hazmat units to test air quality. It’s still not clear what caused the fire.
