Over 2,000 people ordered to evacuate due to fire at Indiana plastics facility

CHICAGO, April 12 (Xinhua) -- More than 2,000 people have been ordered to evacuate their home after a fire broke out Tuesday at an industrial site in Richmond, a city about 70 miles east of Indianapolis, U.S. Midwestern state of Indiana.

The fire, breaking out sometime after 2 p.m. Tuesday, has belched colossal plumes of black smoke into the sky. The blaze is going to burn for a few days, State Fire Marshal Stephen Jones was quoted by local media as saying on Wednesday.

There was no timeline for how long it would take to extinguish the fire completely.

The evacuation zone impacts approximately 2,011 people, and could shift as the winds change. "The smoke is definitely toxic," Jones said.

The industrial site, spanning roughly 175,000 square feet, stores plastics and other materials for recycling.

No serious injuries were reported. State and federal regulators were on the scene to assess the fire's impact on air quality and surface water runoff.

The cause of the fire was not immediately clear.

The owner of the building had been warned several times, and had at one point been hit with an "unsafe citation" about stacking plastic on the site, local media reported, quoting Richmond Fire Chief Tim Brown.