The Magnablend Inc. facility in Waxahachie, Texas caught fire on Monday, October 3rd. The city is located 30 miles south of Dallas and around 1,000 residents were forced to evacuate their homes due to the raging fire. Officials say they believe the fire was started when some chemicals at the plant were mixed incorrectly resulting in a spark that started the massive fire. Donald Golden, the Magnablend spokesman stated that all employees who were working at the facility during the fire safety evacuated the building but he was not able to confirm what chemicals originally sparked the fire. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been consistently monitoring the air quality around Waxahachie in order to make sure the hazardous materials do not spread. For the engineering hazard paradigm, the Magnablend Inc. building should have been built to be more fire resistant and better sprinkler systems to deal with a fire once it starts. The behavioral paradigm involves not building a chemical plant next to residential areas that could be potentially harmed due to air quality or spreading flames. The development approach to this situation would be re-building a more fire resistant facility located further away from residential areas in order to minimize the chance of this hazard occurring again. For the complexity approach, a chemical lab built with bad fire resistant materials started on fire near a residential community. In order to minimize the chance of this occurring in the future, a more fire resistant building should be built far away from residential communities and regulations should be put in place in order to ensure chemicals are mixed safely.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/10/fire-rages-at-texas-chemical-plant/
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