Firefighters from St. Clair Township brought their passports to work with them last night, as they assisted crews in Michigan at the St. Clair Power Plant blaze.
“St. Clair Fire Corunna Station, Tower 22 on scene through the night at the DTE power plant fire in East China Township Michiganm,” the St. Clair Township Fire Department posted on social media.
“Big fire and great work by a number of departments. Now 7 a.m. Friday morning and we are just waiting to be cleared from the scene.”
The Saint Clair Power Plant is a major coal-and oil-fired power plant owned by Detroit Edison, a subsidiary of DTE Energy.
DTE officials said a generation unit at the electrical generation unit caught fire.
“Employees were evacuated immediately and safely,” DTE officials posted on social media on Thursday evening.
“At this time, there are no known injuries at the facility. St. Clair and Marine City first responders are on site and are working to contain the fire. DTE successfully invoked its emergency plant procedures and shut down all other units at the site. We do not expect this to affect electrical service to our customers given the reliability of our system.”
The fire caused smoke to pour across the river into Canada.
This triggered the Lambton OPP to close St. Clair Parkway between Oil Springs Line and Stanley Line as well as Bentpath Line between 40 Highway and St. Clair Parkway.
OPP officials say the roads will remain closed for an undetermined period of time.
“Members of the public are asked to avoid the area until further notice,” OPP officials stated. “The Ministry of Environment (MOE) has dispatched an Air Monitoring Team to the area to measure air quality.”
An update will be issued upon the re-opening of the roadways.
UPDATE #StClair Parkway remains CLOSED between Stanley Line and Oil Springs Line – Bickford Li and Oil Springs CLOSED at Greenfield Rd. ^ag
— OPPCommunicationsWR (@OPP_COMM_WR) 12 August 2016
– Photo credit. St. Clair Township Fire Department on Facebook
