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Fenway buildings evacuated, roads shut as firefighters, police, FBI investigate chemicals in market basement
By adamg on Tue, 09/08/2015 - 6:40pm
The building in question. Photo by BFD.
UPDATE, Wednesday morning: WCVB reports a friend of the store-owner was experimenting with making fish-oil supplements.
Kilmarnock Street and Park Drive were shut and two apartment buildings and several restaurants evacuated tonight when an ISD inspector found a large quantity of suspicious fluids in the basement of the Fenway Market, 76 Kilmarnock Street.
In the end, Boston Police reported shortly after 10 p.m.: Chemicals do not appear to be drug or explosive related residents allowed to return." However, authorities said their investigation into just what was down there continues.
Firefighters, police, EMTs - and the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force - responded to Kilmarnock Street shortly after the discovery of some 300 gallons of fluids in containers around 6 p.m.
Buildings next to the store were evacuated, as were restaurants nearby on Peterborough Street. Residents a little farther away are being told to shelter in place - but to stay away from windows on Kilmarnock.
Park Drive was shut for use as a staging area, for command centers for the various agencies responding and for the buses brought in for evacuees.
Neighborhoods:
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Comments
Th wha?
I got 300 gallons of flammable liquids in my basement right now, and so does my neighbor
I suspect we'll learn more details later
But for now, I'm guessing that this went a bit beyond just household stuff.
Heating oil is obviously flammable
and is often stored in basements, typically in 275-gallon tanks.
Heating oil burns
But it doesn't explode. Obviously the concern was something would ignite it and blow out the windows in the area. You clear the neighbors for a fire, not the neighborhood.
Flammable?
Don't know what is in the Kilmarnock basements, but wanted to say that heating oil is not really flammable. Standard heating oil needs to be heated to 140 Fahrenheit in order to ignite. A guy from the company that delivers it showed me how he extinguished his cigarette in it.
No, you don't shut half a neighborhood for heating oil
Evacuate buildings, etc. I'm guessing something a lot more volatile. And the fact that BFD is now saying this is a police matter would lead to some reasonable speculation about what that might be.
if the address is correct,
if the address is correct, than wouldnt that be a cab garage? it looks like a dump and i wouldnt be suprised if it was improperly stored gasoline or oil.
BFD just tweeted
The scenes is the basement of Fenway Market.
A lab of some sort
Friends on the scene tell me that Health Inspectors noticed a "lab of some sort" with acids and other chemicals and called police and fire.
Lab
Yeah I saw this too on Twitter.
First thing I thought of is a Meth Lab.
Method Lab?
Anyone remember this cleaning product incident?
http://www.universalhub.com/node/15338
Whatever it was, not explosives or meth-related
I've updated the post with the latest from BPD.
My guess
Forgotten photo lab. Even modern eco-friendly chemistry like I use is nasty. Older stuff like you might find in the basement of an old camera shop or bulk processing lab is often terrifying with all the warnings on the cans and bottles.
This is total speculation on my part, but no more so than anyone who assumed it was a meth lab.
Unfortunately
"meth lab" has become one of those pathetic knee-jerk reactions to situations such as this one. Sort of like the "driver was on a cell phone" response to news of a crash.
"pathetic knee-jerk reactions"
How often is a "lab of some sort" discovered in the basement of a residential or commercial building, and what does it usually turn out to be? I think I understand what you're trying to say (maybe?), but in this particular case you may be the pot calling the kettle black.
According to this article:
According to this article: "On Wednesday morning, investigators said the chemicals were identified as cooking oils."
So not even something as nasty as old photo chemicals. Just drums of cooking oil.
Cooking oil
According to WBZ just now.
What the heck was it stored in to cause such an over-reaction?
This is the the Aqua Teen
This is the the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Mooninite Lite-Brite all over again.
Health Inspectors noticed a
In other words, bureaucratic hacks who have no clue what they are doing and panic when they enounter something they've never seen before.
That's concerning
Considering that it was the city's Inspectional Services that initially called it in, I think.
Don't they inspect restaurants on a very routine basis? Wouldn't they know what lots of cooking oil looks like?
I don't buy it. Why would the
I don't buy it. Why would the fire department freak out over something they've seen a million times? And why would it take so long for investigators to note "hey this smells like fryolator grease"?
am I losing my mind...
...or did I hear that the FBI was on the scene? For cooking oil?!
Take a look at some of the
Take a look at some of the photos of the basement. It looks pretty heinous.
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/09/09/fenway-hazmat-evacuations-fish-oil/
Hydrogen Chloride
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/npgd0332.html
AKA Hydrochloric Acid. That's the Hazmat response justification right there.
HCl or glacial acetic acids are used industrially to extract the nonpolar oils in fish from the rest of the fishy mess.
Zoning violation?
I wonder if an industrial manufacturing process is allowed in that neighborhood.
Muriatic acid
Also used to clean bricks, rocks, and tools used with concrete; present at most masonry worksites, available at any home depot for eight bucks. Hazmat is an overreaction.
But more importantly the idea that someone out there is swallowing pills manufactured in that filthy pit… what were they, selling them out of their trunk? Psst hey buddy wanna buy some fish oil capsules? No thanks.