Toledo Fire & Rescue ordered everyone within a mile of 1266 Progress Ave. in North Toledo, Ohio, to leave at 10:48 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 20, after glycidyl methacrylate began escaping from a 5,500-gallon tank at the MC Tank terminal, according to the City of Toledo. The next day, Stellantis canceled both shifts at the Toledo Jeep complex that builds the Wrangler, spokesperson Jodi Tinson told the Detroit Free Press.
The documents describe a leak at a nearby business. None of the ones I reviewed reports damage at the plant. The north complex was evacuated Tuesday night, Tinson said, and the Wednesday first shift was canceled. Stellantis confirmed around 2 p.m. that second shift was gone too. The south plant sat outside the evacuation zone but inside the 3-mile shelter-in-place area, and Tinson said it was not running that week. The line stopped because the fire department drew circles on a map and the plant landed inside them.
The Toledo Chemical Leak, Hour by Hour
The city’s release says the one-mile evacuation was ordered because of explosion risk. At 4:24 a.m. Wednesday, the city added a 3-mile shelter-in-place order based on preliminary plume modeling. It lifted that order at 5 p.m. Wednesday and cut the evacuation zone to a half-mile. The zone shrank to a quarter-mile at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, the tank stopped releasing at 6 p.m. Thursday, and the evacuation ended Friday, Oct. 23. The Free Press reported that the department first told about 300 residents within a half-mile to leave, then widened the order to a mile.
The two orders are different tools. Evacuation moves people out of the area where fire or explosion is the worry. Shelter-in-place, as 13abc reported the instructions, keeps people indoors with windows and doors shut and ventilation that pulls in outside air turned off, which is the answer to a plume that might drift. EPA’s response page says the agency was asked to help around midnight, reached the scene at 2:30 a.m., and requested air modeling to inform the evacuation decisions. The city’s release does not say how many people lived inside it.
Why Firefighters Let the Tank Finish Reacting
By about 10 a.m. Wednesday, containment attempts had failed, EPA says. The tank was compromised and the chemical was reacting, and the city chose to let the reaction run its course. The release lasted nearly 48 hours. TFRD Battalion Chief Tony Santiago told 13abc, “Unfortunately, this is something that takes time and monitoring changing conditions.”
The safety data sheet the city posted, a Thermo Fisher document for the lab supplier’s version of the chemical, says polymerization can occur and lists heat, light, open flame and hot surfaces among the conditions to avoid. It gives a flash point of 168.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz initially called the incident an explosion, and a city spokesperson later said there was no explosion, ABC News reported.
What Was in the Air, and What Wasn’t
The city describes glycidyl methacrylate as an irritant that can burn the eyes, nose, mouth and skin. The same safety data sheet classifies it under carcinogenicity category 1B, lists an IARC rating of Group 2A and sets a workplace exposure limit of 0.01 ppm as a time-weighted average. That is one supplier’s sheet, and the city’s own release makes no cancer claim. Lucas County Health Commissioner Karim Baroudi said at a Wednesday news conference, “It is a toxic chemical,” and said long-term exposure can cause cancer, as CBS Detroit relayed from WTOL’s report.
City officials told ABC News at least 60 people had been treated for symptoms potentially related to the release. A city spokesperson later put it at 57 patients at area hospitals, most treated and released, with seven still in care Thursday morning and no serious complications, 13abc reported. EPA’s mobile air lab started sampling the evening of Oct. 23, and by EPA’s Oct. 26 update its sampling had not detected the chemical, apart from one extremely low reading below reporting and screening levels at an industrial location. The city says tap water is safe, roads and waterways have reopened, and residents should discard uncovered food and produce left outdoors within the 3-mile zone. On Oct. 27, the Oregon Fire Department reported a strong odor; the city said the investigation points to a landfill, not the terminal. The health department hotline is 419-779-7089.
The Cause Is Still Open
Ohio EPA spokesperson Bryant Somerville told ABC News the release came from the 5,500-gallon tank because of an error during a material transfer. Officials told 13abc the tank was compromised while being transported. EPA’s page lists no confirmed cause, calls the container an intermodal tank, says its enforcement team is investigating with the state, and refers only to an unnamed potentially responsible party doing the cleanup under EPA oversight. 13abc reports that MC Tank Transport is a subsidiary of Kenan Advantage Group. In a statement, the company said, “Our first priority is protecting people and supporting the emergency response.”
Kevin Gotinsky, the UAW vice president who oversees its Stellantis department, said in an emailed statement that the union is monitoring the situation. “Our top priority is keeping our members safe, and we will continue to advocate that Stellantis puts safety first,” he said. I did not find a Stellantis statement on when the north plant resumed or whether workers were paid for the canceled shifts. The Auto Wire has covered Stellantis’ worker-safety record this year, including a fatal fall at its Center Line facility in August.
What Happens Next
EPA and Ohio EPA began overseeing cleanup Oct. 25. On Oct. 26 the responsible party evaluated the tank’s contents and moved the tank into secondary containment, EPA says, and EPA is working to hand oversight to Ohio. The enforcement investigation has no public timeline. This is not the first time Toledo’s output has stopped for a reason outside the assembly line: The Auto Wire reported the Gladiator line idled in April 2025 over a parts problem.
If a tank of this stuff sat a mile from your house, would a 10:48 p.m. evacuation order feel like enough warning, or would you have wanted to know it was there years ago?