More than 40 firefighters needed for northwestern Indiana blaze

HAMMOND, Ind. -- Firefighters contained an aluminum plant blaze that had produced dense black clouds of smoke but were still struggling Friday to douse lingering flames being fed by an unknown fuel source, a fire official said.\nHammond's chief fire inspector, Jim Walsko, said 40 to 50 firefighters from three agencies remained on the scene at about 3 p.m. trying to extinguish remaining flames at Jupiter Aluminum Corp. But officials were having trouble contacting company officials to discuss the hot spot, he said.\nNo one was injured, and workers on duty when the fire began left safely, he said.\nWalsko said firefighters from Hammond, East Chicago, Ind., and Calumet City, Ill., were able to contain flames rising from a pit filled with a kerosene-like light oil. BP Amoco workers also helped by dumping fire-suppressing foam on the material used in the aluminum-finishing process.\n"We've got that under control, but we still have an adjacent area that's being fed by something," he said. "The problem apparently is that there's some form of a leak, and we're not sure where if it's natural gas or what it is."\nHe said that aerial ladders continued to pour water on the blaze and have contained the remaining flames.\nBlack clouds of smoke that had rolled off the plant Friday morning, slowing traffic along the Indiana Toll Road, had dissipated by 3 p.m., Walsko said.\nThe fire began about 5:45 a.m. at the factory that makes aluminum rod coils, plates, sheets and foil.\nMorning footage from television station helicopters showed several buildings engulfed in flames with black smoke rising from collapsed roofs at the plant in the R & R industrial park about 20 miles southeast of Chicago.\nAn area about 300 feet by 400 feet was consumed with flames at the fire's peak, sending smoke generally upward and to the north and posing no immediate threat to nearby residential areas.\nHe said the fire might have started when an aluminum furnace used in making the company's products became overfilled, causing the flames inside to spread and reach the building's roofline. An automatic furnace-extinguishing system apparently didn't work, he said.\nState Fire Marshal Roger Johnson said a Hammond fire official told him that the smoke rolling from the fire was not toxic.