Queen City Barrel Fire
August 19, 2004
Pics taken August 21, 2004
Cincinnati, OH
I ran into some guy up on the viaduct who used to work there. He said it was the oldest company in Cincinnati. It was built around 1816. It was formerly the F. H. Lawson Company. Queen City Barrel went out of business in 1988 he said and was just being used pretty much for storage. While talking to him, his boss from 27 years just so happened by and they had a little reunion of sorts. It was interesting hearing old work stories from way back. One side of the building was just used for storing pallets. The video on the news was astounding. This fire was HUGE. Anyone within a 5 mile radius (me included) was on "shelter in place" alert because of the smoke and noxious chemicals. That just means that you were supposed to stay inside, close your windows and turn off your a/c. The smoke plume blew on for miles and miles. I'll probably head back down there in a week and see if I can get some better pics.
Walking up the viaduct. Queen City Barrel is behind this building, (the old Hutch Sporting Goods Store).
A view from the side. There were thousands of barrels in here full of noxious stuff.
It stunk. A building to the left was being used as pallet storage.
Those barrels were exploding like popcorn.
Firemen are still spraying water on it to keep the flareups down.
Spraying on the other side.
There were still a few fire trucks around. The roads all around were blocked off.
All the windows were blown out.
A CG&E crew on the scene to restore electric.
Too high up for me.
A side view from the viaduct.
A view of the city from the viaduct..
More fire trucks.
A fire truck in an alley.
More pics of Queen City Barrel Fire