Firefighters say the cause of a fire which destroyed the water treatment plant at Taralga is unknown.
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Crookwell Fire and Rescue NSW Captain Glenn Bonomini fought the fire which ignited inside a shipping container on Tuesday, December 8.
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Fire and Rescue crews were able to battle the blaze from inside the container.
It burned at extremely high temperatures and released plumes of toxic black smoke.
Inside the structure was a lot of plastic piping and containers which when burned released toxic gases, Captain Bonomini explained.
Firefighters were alerted to a 12-metre shipping container which had caught alight at 10.26am by a triple zero call. It was extinguished by about 11.30am.
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"The fire started in the plant room, which is inside the shipping container, everything was destroyed in there," he said.
"The ignition point wasn't determined."
Firefighters from Taralga Rural Fire Service were first on scene and stopped the spread of the blaze to chemicals stored nearby.
"The storage of chemicals was outside the container. The RFS restricted the fire from reaching that area which meant that we didn't have a HAZMAT incident," Captain Bonomini said.
Fire and Rescue NSW were on scene until 2pm to mop up and ensure the fire did not reignite.
