Residents living downwind of an Orrington trash facility are being urged to keep their windows closed as firefighters deal with a blaze that could take several days to extinguish.
Thousands of tons of waste were inside the former Penobscot Energy Recovery Company trash incineration plant when the fire was first spotted Tuesday night. Firefighters from nearly a dozen communities responded and successfully contained the blaze to the building. But Orrington Fire & Rescue said Wednesday morning that crews had not been able to get inside to battle the nearly 40-foot-tall piles of trash because of concerns about the integrity of the building.
"This fire is contained however still burning and will take several days to full extinguish," Assistant Fire Chief Chad Bean said Wednesday morning in a press release. "We are highly encouraging all Orrington, Brewer, Bucksport and Hampden residents to keep their windows closed at this time due to the significant smoke problem that this fire is creating."
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection also recommended that local residents keep windows closed if they can see or smell smoke, adding that the health impacts from the smoke were still unclear Wednesday morning. Air quality monitoring teams from the DEP and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency were being deployed to Orrington and surrounding towns.
The former PERC plant closed in May of last year because of financial problems, leaving behind an estimated 8,000 tons of trash. The facility was a major receiving point for municipal solid waste for the Bangor region and the closure forced many towns to divert trash to landfills.
Eagle Point Energy Center acquired the facility earlier this year with plans to restart operations in early-2025 after making improvements.
In a statement, Eagle Point Energy said the cause of the fire was under investigation but the company suggested that lithium-ion batteries could have been the source. The company said the fire had caused "negligible" damage to the facility.
