By Tom Weber, KWMU
St. Louis, MO. – People in St. Louis's Lafayette Square neighborhood should expect to see flames coming from the nearby Praxair site next week.
But this fire will be planned.
The fire at the Praxair plant on Chouteau last June made missiles out of gas cylinders when they caught fire and were launched into the nearby neighborhood.
Praxair is now looking for another site in St. Louis to call home. But in cleaning up the property Praxair spokesman Nigel Muir says 10 or so cylinders are too unstable to move and the gas inside them needs to be burned off on-site.
"The propane will burn off," Muir said. "It will generate some heat but it won't create any residue going into the atmosphere, and we are planning on having the fire department present while we do that."
Muir says neighbors have been told the so-called flaring will happen next week (May 9-11) only on cylinders that contain propane or propylene, and that the flames should only be a few inches high.