CORNELIUS, Ore. (KOIN) — The evacuation order for 80 homes in the Cornelius area after a fire erupted at an ethanol facility Tuesday afternoon was lifted around 7:30 p.m.
“Residents that were evacuated can go home. N Adair St is open. N 4th Ave is closed from the railroad tracks to Holladay St,” the Cornelius Fire Department tweeted.
Officials earlier said they hoped to get the evacuation order lifted by 7 p.m. Some people who evacuated went to Forest Grove High School as the staging area.
JJ Perez, who lives nearby, said his wife got their kids and evacuated to Cornelius Elementary School. After the evacuation order was lifted, Perez said it wasn’t too bad.
“At least nobody got hurt,” he said.
He said his wife works at Summit Foods. “She is trying to figure out what we can do to help,” adding that she was “friends with the owner.”
Witnesses said there were multiple explosions at Thunderbolt Racing Fuel on North 4th Avenue, spreading the fire to at least 2 other structures.
Workers nearby said they saw the smoke and got a call on their phone to evacuate. Many Walmart workers went to a nearby field.
“It sounded just like firecrackers and it was first a car,” said grocery store worker Maria Galvan, until they were told it “was fuel tanks.”
Rosemarie Russell, who lives across the street, said it was very scary.
“I was sitting in my house and it sounded like a car hit my house, that’s how bad the explosion was. And then another explosion happened and then the fire department came and was knocking on everybody’s door telling them they had one minute to get out. So I had to get all my dogs and leave,” Russell told KOIN 6 News. “It was very scary.”
Mike and Charlotte Mitchum were among those evacuated. He said the “explosions were strong enough it shook the house and you could literally feel the blast.”
Charlotte said she saw flames shooting up at the plant.
“I heard a couple booms and went out front and (they) told us we need to evacuate,” she said. “We are just waiting for them to put it out so it’s safe for us to go home because it’s biofuel.”
Michele Snyder was going into Walmart when she saw the fire.
“Walmart employees came around, were yelling at everyone to evacuate the building because we were in danger and this was not a drill,” Snyder said. “Police told us to come up and get up on the other side of the street and they kept backing us up from there.”
She said “you can hear pops like something is exploding in the buildings. It’s pretty scary.”