Explosion at Greenville chemical plant triggers smoke evacuation order
Crews extinguished a fire at the Loveland Products facility by midday Wednesday, with no immediate injuries reported.
By Yasmin Nasser ·
Greenville, Mississippi, sits roughly 120 miles northwest of the state capital Jackson in the Mississippi Delta. On Wednesday, an explosion at a local chemical plant sent a large plume of black smoke into the sky.
Emergency crews received notification of the incident shortly after 7:00 a.m. CST at the Loveland Products plant. By midday, Sara Moreland Hester, a deputy emergency management director for Washington County and a local firefighter, confirmed the fire was out. Hester stated that no injuries were reported immediately after the event.
Plant management told the city the explosion involved a fire linked to a herbicide chemical. Nutrien, the parent company of Loveland, said plant leaders were working directly with first responders. Loveland is headquartered in Loveland, Colorado, and manufactures fertilizer, plant nutrition, and crop protection products.
City officials ordered residents in the immediate vicinity to shelter in place for several hours due to potentially hazardous smoke. The order applied to the mostly rural area on the city's eastern edge. Officials lifted the shelter-in-place directive shortly before noon.
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality deployed an emergency response team to the site. The agency also engaged an air-monitoring contractor to assess potential impacts on local air quality.
Greenville has a population of approximately 26,000. Firefighters completed their work at the scene by midday Wednesday.
