On the journalism side, the source seems to be extremely alarmist,[0] so I doubt much skepticism was practiced there.
On the NOAA side, it would be interesting to see the full set of assumptions behind this model. I would presume the vast majority of emissions would occur during the burn itself (February 6th, afternoon), but this model seems to assume a significant (undiminished?) outflow at midnight on February 8th.
My understanding is that contemporaneous weather radar[0] put the plume southeast at the time of the burn.
[0] https://www.wdtn.com/news/ohio/east-palestine-train-derailme...