Florida plant nursery fire sends flames, smoke into sky

KISSIMMEE, Fla. (AP) — A massive fire broke out early Thursday at a nursery in central Florida, burning thousands of plastic pots that sent flames and plumes of thick, black smoke into the air.

The fire broke out about 2 a.m. at Nursery Supplies Inc. in Kissimmee, which is just south of Orlando in central Florida, authorities told news outlets.

Hazmat teams from Osceola County and nearby Orange County were monitoring the air quality in the area. No evacuations of nearby homes or businesses have been ordered. Nearly 2 acres (0.81 hectares) of pallets holding the two-gallon plastic pots for plants, some stacked as high as 10 feet (3 meters), caught fire. The pallets at the nursery retail outlet were outdoors, and firefighters were trying to protect the outlet’s building from the blaze.

“There are hundreds of those pallets and that’s, that’s the root of the issue,” Osceola County Fire Rescue Deputy Chief Jon Haskett said early Thursday.

Video footage from Orlando television stations showed flames and plumes of thick, black smoke rising in the air.

“We’ve slowed the forward progress of that fire,” Haskett said. “But due to the area that it’s consuming, and the product, it’s just given us a lot of challenges.”

Fire officials didn’t immediately know the fire’s cause, but an investigation would start once the fire was under control, Haskett said.