Morris expected to change lithium battery rules after fire forced evacuations
MORRIS, Ill. - It has been nearly two weeks since a fire ripped through a building in Morris, forcing people from their homes.
Now, officials are cracking down on lithium batteries.
When the building caught fire, filling the east side of Morris with thick black smoke, inside were 100 tons of lithium batteries. The blaze caused evacuations for several days in the area.
Drone video from earlier this month showed the insides of the Superior Battery business where the owner says he was storing batteries hoping to start a solar panel business.
The fire raged on for more than a week with hotspots, until finally it was extinguished just a few days ago.
There were no injuries and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has continued to monitor air quality, which has remained safe.
But the fire chief says there could be flare-ups once again when the batteries are moved from their current location.
"When they start moving these batteries…as soon as they start agitating them we’re pretty confident we’re going to get more reactions out of them batteries," Morris Fire Chief Tracey Steffes said. "Small reactions that we can contain and we can control."
The chief says they did not know the batteries were at the location and because of that, he expects a change in the fire code, letting his department know where lithium batteries are being stored.