Fire filled the air Thanksgiving morning after multiple explosions at a recycling plant in Central City.

And authorities say one firefighter was taken from the scene to a Cedar Rapids hospital with what was described as a "life-threatening" medical issue. No other details were given.

People in the area say they could see a thick black plume of smoke from the Iowa Gold Distributing (IGD) business just off Highway 13 as much as 10 miles away.

Central City Fire Chief Jim O'Leary requested that nearby residents stay indoors and to turn off furnaces if possible. Fire officials cancelled that request before 6 p.m. Thursday. They made it because they were concerned about possible contaminates in the smoke plume from the Iowa Gold fire and wanted anyone living nearby to avoid exposure.

The Fire Chief says air quality monitoring equipment had not detected any significant concerns earlier so the warning was just a precaution.

O'Leary says the recycling business stores and recycles waste oil and other solvents in the two businesses that burned.

"Basically the fire spread from that building when the oil burst out of a poly tank. It ran on the ground and the oil was on fire and ran down and started the building behind it on fire," the chief said.

O'Leary did not have a cause of the fire yet. The Iowa State Fire Marshal's Office was called in to investigate