Cooler Mornings, Calmer Air: A Friendly Follow‑Up on the Newburgh Fire
2025-09-26
Good news mood: coffee tastes like coffee again, the breeze has stopped pretending to be a news anchor, and Newburgh mornings feel mostly ordinary (which is our favorite flavor of miracle). Here’s a light, neighborly check‑in after the PBTT plant fire earlier this month.
What’s new since our last update:
• The response shifted from “lights and sirens” to “clipboards and checklists.” EPA, IDEM, and local partners are in unified‑command cleanup mode, with ongoing community sampling and ash collection where needed.
• Air monitoring around town has continued to read in the “nothing scary” column while crews wrapped up the federal on‑scene work and moved into follow‑through and documentation.
• Vann Road Park reopened; softball sounds like summer again. Consider this your permission slip to take a victory lap and a deep breath.
• About that pond: officials say the fish kill at Vann Road Park Lake likely traced back to firefighting runoff carrying soot—ugly, not ongoing. Crews monitored and adjusted as part of the cleanup playbook.
• Remember those shelter‑in‑place messages from the hectic first hours? They were guided by real‑time modeling and on‑site testing; that’s why alerts moved, shrank, and then disappeared as data improved.
• A quick administrative note: Warrick County’s temporary burn ban linked to the incident has since been lifted. Backyard marshmallows return to the approved‑activity list (weather permitting and common sense required).
Practical, boring, useful:
1) If you’re still seeing a dusting of ash on patio furniture from that first weekend, rinse gently and steer water away from gardens and drains. Gloves > heroics.
2) Pets are curious; remind them snacks come from the kitchen, not the wind.
3) If you notice anything odd in nearby creeks or the Vann Park pond (discoloration, fish in distress), snap a photo and report it to local officials so it lands on the right checklist quickly.
Big picture:
The headline is “normal is returning.” That’s thanks to firefighters who did the loud work, scientists who did the quiet work, and neighbors who did the kind work—checking on each other, sharing updates, and making coffee for the person who forgot to exhale.
Keep being excellent to one another. We’ll post another short note if agencies publish new test results or schedule additional neighborhood sweeps. Until then: open windows, slow brooms, easy weekend plans.