ROCKY RIVER, Ohio — Our newsroom has gotten calls and complaints about a strange odor in the air in western Cuyahoga County. It’s something that, so far, has gone unexplained.
On our News 5 Facebook page, people said it “smelled like a gas leak” and others described it as a fuel or lighter fluid type of odor.
“We’ve been receiving complaints of the last couple, three weeks,” said Rocky River Fire Chief Aaron Lenart. He told us it’s not every night they’ve been getting calls, but when they do come in, they’re typically between 8pm-10pm and mostly in the east and southeast sections of the city.
“We’ve engaged our hazmat team to try and see if we can pinpoint and get an answer,” said Lenart. "We don’t know if it’s something coming down the I-90 corridor. We don’t know if it’s something on the railroad corridor. We don’t know if it’s overhead; we don’t know if it’s a factory.”
He said the smell hasn’t registered on their detection meters.
“We don’t have anything definitive that it’s causing any health problem,” he said. “We can’t detect anything. We just have an odor.”
But it’s not happening just in Rocky River.
“We’ve been getting complaints in Lakewood, Rocky River and Fairview Park. All three fire chiefs have been in contact with each other,” said Lenart.
Lakewood Fire confirmed it has responded to numerous calls. People from Lakewood described the smell as “extremely strong” and “literally (it) was so strong I was lightheaded.”
We found street crews putting down asphalt, but neighbors told us that just started happening, so that isn’t the cause.
News 5 Investigators have reached out to fire departments, the health department and Hopkins International Airport. Lenart said he’s contacted the Ohio EPA and more trying to figure out this mystery spinning in the air.
“We’re engaging every agency that we can to try and help… find out the cause of it and how do we deal with it,” said the chief.
He also told us he’s been with the department for nearly 30 years and can’t ever recall an odor complaint like this in Rocky River. There was once a problem with a de-icing agent that smelled like garlic and onions, but they were able to pinpoint that.
