Plague Rat- Wagner Mars Base

While fighting Plague Rat the other night in a three hero game we came across an instance involving the Wagner Mars Base environment card "FIRE IN THE BIOSPHERE" and the Plague Rat villain card "INFECTION". At the time two of the three heros had been infected with the INFECTION card. INFECTION is an ONGOING card and at the end of the environment turn "FIRE IN THE BIOSHPERE" activated. The card states the following "At the end of the environment turn, this card deals each target 2 fire damage." Pretty straight forward. The card then says "Each hero must either destroy 1 of their ongoing cards or take 2 more fire damage".

My question is this, Could INFECTION have counted as one of our two infected heroes Ongoing cards that could be destroyed thanks to the environment card? Would the environment card allow us to destroy INFECTION? I ask this becuase the card INFECTION says "Play this card next to an active hero who is not infected". Does that mean it counts as one of my hero's ongoing cards?

Nah, it's still a villain card, just like when you play Twist the Ether on a villain.

Yeah, it's played next to a hero card, but it's not their card.  It's still the villain's card.