WAYLAND, Mich. – A plume of smoke could be seen from across Allegan County Monday afternoon.
“We were leaving Central Dispatch which is at Dumont Lake east of here, which is about 20 miles and we could see it,” said Allegan County Emergency Management Director Frank Post.
Post said dispatch got the call about a fire at around 3:00 p.m. near 132nd Ave. in Wayland.
Emergency crews soon found out that plume of smoke in the sky was a petroleum fire at an oil field.
“There was an ignition of the crude oil that was in one of the tanks,” said Post. “That tank was within a containment area. And that’s a dyked area around the tanks to collect any spill that might occur in the tanks.”
A few miles away near 133rd Ave., trucks were filling up with water at a fire hydrant, then trucking it back to the scene.
About 9,000 gallons of it was used throughout the day.
“The tanks were on fire so no tanks ever a possibility of blowing up levying so yeah there was that that element of danger for us,” said Wayland Fire Chief Jim Stodard.
Chief Jim Stodard said they couldn’t use just water to extinguish the fire. They needed to use a mix of water and foam.
“The difficulty was getting the water back there to put on the fire and getting close enough to the fire it was it was oil fire so it was very hot,” said Stodard.
Chief Stodard added that Monday afternoon’s fire was different than their usual calls.
“We don’t see a lot of crude oil fires in this area,” said Chief Stodard. “So usually we’re at a structure fire or something like that. So it’s you know, it’s pretty uncommon to anybody around here really.”
Stodard said there is currently no danger to the public.
►Make it easy to keep up to date with more stories like this. Download the 13 ON YOUR SIDE app now.
Have a news tip? Email news@13onyourside.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter. Subscribe to our YouTube channel.