A fire tore through a storage building at the former Bethlehem Steel complex in Lackawanna on Nov. 9, 2016, sending a smoke plume stretching for miles over the Southtowns, visible as far away as Canada, while residents were forced from their homes under a state of emergency. The blaze burned for days, closed schools, and shut down a stretch of Route 5 as crews fought to contain flames amid combustible materials at the old industrial site.
News reporter Barbara O'Brien captured the scene as the storage building burned that day, according to The Buffalo News, which described the blaze raging at the former Bethlehem Steel storage site along Route 5. More than 100 firefighters from Lackawanna, Buffalo and other communities responded to the scene. A Buffalo firefighter suffered a broken ankle during the response.
Conflicting Accounts of When and How the Fire Started
Accounts of the fire's origin differ. Lackawanna development director Fred Heinle said the blaze reportedly began at about 6:30 a.m. that Wednesday when a hot lightbulb fell onto combustible materials, according to WNY Papers. A separate report from Spectrum News 1 said the fire began burning around 7:50 a.m. that same Wednesday, with investigators at the time believing an employee had dropped a light bulb onto some sort of debris. Investigators were examining the cause, and combustible materials and debris were present at the site.
The fire burned at the former Bethlehem Steel site, known as Steel Works Industrial Park, where Industrial Materials Recycling operated. Great Lakes Industrial Development owned the site.
Evacuations, School Closures and a Shelter-in-Place Order
As smoke spread, authorities instructed residents from Lackawanna to Athol Springs to shelter in place and keep doors and windows closed. Police asked residents of Lincoln Avenue, off Route 5, to leave their homes over fears the building could collapse, and officials evacuated all 300 homes in Bethlehem Park on Thursday, Nov. 10, after declaring the air quality unsafe, per the same WNY Papers account. Ash was carried south to Hamburg as smoke affected the area.
The fire caused the closure of a portion of Route 5, which remained closed in a Thursday update. The Buffalo News reported that Lackawanna schools were closed and Route 5 remained closed in its Thursday update on the fire. Frontier schools were closed that day as well. The Hamburg and Blasdell school districts also relocated their students to areas safe from the unhealthy smoke, the WNY Papers report noted.
Smoke and Water-Quality Concerns
The smoke cloud was large enough to appear on local Doppler radar, extending up to 23 miles, and the state Department of Environmental Conservation set up two air-monitoring sites in Lackawanna, one on Electric Avenue and another on Madison Avenue. Firefighters anticipated working at the scene for a couple of days.
Potential water pollution of Lake Erie was a concern, and officials monitored for it.
A Jury Verdict Years Later
Years after the fire, the legal fallout caught up with the parties connected to the site. An Erie County jury unanimously found both the property owner, Great Lakes Industrial Development, and the tenant, Industrial Materials Recycling, negligent in connection with the 2016 fire, according to News 4 Buffalo. The jury also found the owner and tenant guilty of gross negligence, the station reported. No further details on the jury's damages findings or the case's procedural status were available in the reporting reviewed.
