[Chad C. Mulligan]

One web page implies that they process scrap brass, which means heat, which means it might have been a gas leak.

[Drago]

Yeah and brass isn’t what it used to be...they “got the lead out”, and now it tends to crack a lot easier in my experience (esp. in low temps).

[mmichaels1970]

One web page implies that they process scrap brass

They do. Reports were saying it was like metal lava. They do smelting and have ingots and stuff. Local news starting to report 1 dead. I’m hearing around 13 injured.

We got pretty close at around 7:30. Could still see a smoldering cloud. There was a small flame still atop the building.

These guys have had incidents before. But nothing to this scale.

[hecticskeptic]

Scrap brass...I have been to a bunch of these types of plants. The thing they have to be extremely careful about is making sure that the scrap doesn’t have any places where there is trapped water. Of all the things that could have happened, I suspect this is the mot likely.