The area surrounding KMW has underground wells that pull water from a natural aquifer, which supplies more than 400,000 people in Montgomery County with clean, fresh water.
Water department crews worked Monday scraping any leftover water or oil from the ground and taking measurements from underground to see if any of oil seeped through.
“We walked the site and identified all the water pretty much stayed on site. They didn’t run off into any of the storm sewers,” said Michelle Simmons from the Dayton Water Department.
Officials are confident no oily water got into nearby drains or sewers from the fire, Simmons said .
There are wells near the now charred building, but they don’t contain drinking water directly, Simmons said.
“The monitoring wells that we monitor from or just to determine the quality of the water that’s moving toward our production wells. They’re not related. So this will have no impact on our drinking water whatsoever,” Simmons said.
The Ohio EPA, the city and fire crews strategically coordinated the response to the fire to ensure none of the oil seeped into the ground, by letting the fire burn through the night.
It’s a tactic they first tried back in 1987, during the massive Sherwin Williams fire.
That fire burned for more than a day consuming the toxic chemicals in the building.
“It all depends on what’s in the structure. If it’s just a wood frame building, we have no problems putting that out, but obviously the aquifer and our drinking water is one of the most irreplaceable, precious resources that we have in this area,” said David Wright, Dayton Fire Department district chief.
No one was inside the building when the fire happened, but the fire caused concerns for nearby residents.
”We seen a lot of people running and getting in their cars from the housing over here on Pompei Circle” Lee Morgan of Riverside said. “Looked like the houses were getting close to catching on fire.”
Neighbors were also rattled by oil drums exploding on the property, Morgan said.
“As the night went on we probably heard about a total of 30 - 35 explosions,” Morgan said.
About 1,400 gallons of oil were inside the building when it went up in flames, causing those explosions, officials said.
Damaged caused by the fire was evident Monday. The roof was caved in and everything inside was charred.
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