HAZMAT Situation Develops at Target

The Target in Plainville was evacuated on Thursday originally because of an accidental fire alarm, but when they got there they found something else.

Plainville fire chief Theodore Joubert said when they were going over the building, Wrentham fire chief James McMorrow happened to be around and said he smelled what he thought to be a dangerous gas leak.

“It was an uncharacteristic odor in the pharmacy area,” he said. “We had to go through and do what we did to make sure it wasn’t a dangerous substance.”

Joubert said he and McMorrow agreed it warranted a tier 1 hazardous materials response, in which fire personnel from the Wrentham, Norfolk and North Attleboro Departments responded.

He said they had readings of some kind of gas in the building, but by the time they had the detector in the building, the leak had stopped and the gas had already dissipated. He said they were not able to identify the gas, but he believes it was probably a leak from a refrigeration unit, as Target employees said they were having problems with their air conditioning unit.