New videos show towers of fire that prompted evacuations after last year’s fiery Ohio derailment

By JOSH FUNK and TOM KRISHER
Associated Press

Residents of eastern Ohio can now get an up-close view in newly released videos of the toxic towers of fire that forced them from their homes last February when officials decided to blow open five tank cars filled with vinyl chloride they worried might explode days after a Norfolk Southern train derailed. The National Transportation Safety Board released more than a half-dozen videos of the fire and huge plume of black smoke it generated in East Palestine, Ohio. They also released documents about the decision to release and burn the vinyl chloride. Those documents reinforce questions raised last year about whether the tank cars really would have exploded.