Dead fish fill the Kentucky River after a fire in a Jim Beam warehouse

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The warehouse in Versailles, Kentucky, caught fire late Tuesday with 45,000 barrels of whiskey inside, according to Jim Beam's parent company, Beam Suntory.

The fire is extinguished and the cause has not been determined.

A video of CNN's affiliate, WKYT, showed dead fish floating along the river and piling up along its shores while officials were monitoring the scene and continuing their efforts to minimize the danger. 39, impact on the environment.

As the fire diminished, a containment system had been put in place in the warehouse to prevent runoff from polluting the waterways and nearby drinking water sources, said last week John Mura, spokesman for the Kentucky Cabinet of Energy and Environment. Ventilators have been installed in Glenns Creek and the Kentucky River to reduce the number of fish dying.

Officials announce that there will be more dead and dying fish when runoff from the distillery will go into the Kentucky River.
Despite these efforts, officials said on Sunday that users of the Kentucky River would continue to see and smell more dead and dying fish as runoff from the distillery flowed into the river.
Until now, the alcohol plume on the Kentucky River is expanding about 23 km, said the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet in a statement. posted on Facebook.

The plume is expected to reach the Ohio River early Monday morning and dissipate when it enters the greater expanse of water. But there could still be an impact on aquatic life immediately at the meeting of the two rivers, the agency said.

A multi-agency operation will continue to use a combination of water sampling instruments and screening of water fields to obtain real-time results on the quality of the water. water to determine the location of the edge of attack and the length of the plume.

State wildlife authorities are studying and assessing fish mortality in the Kentucky River.

Meanwhile, the aeration of the Kentucky River continues to attempt to increase the low levels of dissolved oxygen in the water.

The Department of Fish and Wildlife was on the river Sunday to continue wildlife assessments and fish count, the agency said. The results are pending.

CNN's Paul P. Murphy contributed to this report.

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