By Mike Tony, Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Chlorinated dry bleach and methanol were present in a fire that burned for two hours after a fatal explosion at the Optima Chemical facility on the Chemours Co.’s site in Belle Tuesday night, according to emergency responders.
An emergency and hazardous chemical inventory that Optima Belle LLC submitted to the West Virginia Emergency Management Division, as required by the division for a reporting period spanning all of 2019, lists 18 chemicals, half of which were listed as explosive or flammable.
Methanol was one of the flammable chemicals, and CDB 63, a chlorinated dry bleach product that emergency responders said was present in the fire, was not listed at all.
“Methanol would certainly catch on fire,” said Jimmie Oxley, an explosives expert and a professor of chemistry at the University of Rhode Island…