The Easton Fire Department responded about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday to a minor incident in an abandoned building along Route 611 just south of the George S. Smith Memorial Bridge over the Lehigh River.
The fire in what appeared to be rubbish or debris was quickly put out, Deputy Chief Henry Hennings said. It wasn’t clear if it was started by chemicals or squatters, he added. But as firefighters came out of the space, they noticed smoke coming from another room in the onetime industrial building where no one has worked for more than 20 years, Hennings said.
A chemical reaction had happened in an area containing decaying, various sized containers of acid -- “too many to count,” Hennings said when asked for a number.
The “off-gassing” might have come from the humidity or one of the barrels falling, Hennings said. “Several” of the containers were in “very, very poor condition,” Hennings said.