APEX, N.C.-
As many as 17,000 people were urged to flee homes on the outskirts of Raleigh early Friday as flames shot from a burning hazardous waste plant and a chlorine cloud rose high over the area.
No employees were believed to have been inside the EQ Industrial Services plant when the fire and a series of explosions started late Thursday. Wake County officials said 41 people went to emergency rooms, most complaining of respiratory problems, but nearly all had been released by midday.
EQ Industrial Services handles a wide array of industrial waste, from paints to solvents, and houses chemicals such as chlorine, pesticides, herbicides, sulfur and fertilizer.
Because of the potential dangers in that mix, firefighters waited for daybreak to determine how to attack the blaze, officials said. Area schools and downtown Apex were closed, and police blocked off streets into the area as the plant continued to burn.
“I believe the fire has gone down significantly as a result of having burned up a great deal of combustible material, and also the fact that the rain has helped dampen the fire a great deal,” town manager Bruce Radford said mid-morning.
Mayor Keith Weatherly said state air quality officials told him the steady rain was helping “scrub” the air, dissipating the plume of chlorine gas. Initial air quality samples offered a “very optimistic outlook” and there was no threat to the city’s drinking water, he said.
“The rainfall that we received … was the best thing that we could have had happen to us,” Weatherly said. “We’ve had no other reports of the plume since the one we gave you this morning.”
Weatherly added, however, that residents would not be allowed home until the fire is extinguished.
It wasn’t immediately clear what started the fire. Weatherly said the flames appeared to have jumped overnight to four petroleum tanks belonging to another company, but later said that report may have been inaccurate.
EQ spokesman Robert Doyle said the Wayne, Mich.-based company was mobilizing its emergency response team to help with the cleanup. About 25 employees work at the Apex plant, but all had left the building by 7 p.m. Thursday, he said.
“Because of the many different types of waste that we bring in, it’s very difficult to determine the cause of the fire,” he said.
In March, the state Department of Natural Resources had fined EQ $32,000 for six violations at the plant, including failing to “maintain and operate the facility to minimize the possibility of a sudden or non-sudden release of hazardous waste … which could threaten human health or the environment.” But Doyle cautioned that the violations might not have had anything to do with the fire.
The state Department of Environment and Natural Resources said the company had passed a required inspection as recently as Sept. 28-29.
Officials initially urged about half the Apex’s residents to evacuate, then expanded the request about two hours later to thousands more when a plume of smoke and chemicals moved.
Overnight, a yellow haze lingered over downtown, and residents as far as 2 miles away said they could see the plume or smell the chemicals, officials said.
The evacuation covered much of the west side of Apex, about 10 miles southwest of Raleigh. Authorities opened a shelter at an elementary school, where a few hundred residents and their pets waited for news about the fire.
Cory Cataldo said he and his wife and two young sons were awakened around 1 a.m. by a knock at the door, and a man told them to evacuate because of a chemical fire.
“That’s about all I needed to know,” said Cataldo, who said his wife and sons have asthma. “My first concern was just to get everybody out.”
Of those who didn’t evacuate, Radford said: “They are putting themselves in very grave danger by being around this smoke.”
About 100 elderly residents were evacuated from a nursing home in Apex and taken to nearby hospitals for shelter.
Even Apex’s 911 center and fire department were evacuated because of the fire; Wake County emergency dispatchers took over the phones.
People who sought medical treatment mostly complained of respiratory problems, WakeMed spokeswoman Heather Monackey said. County officials said 13 emergency workers were among those treated, including one who had minor burns.
White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said the Environmental Protection Agency has sent experts to the scene along with air-monitoring and emergency response equipment.
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Associated Press writers Mike Baker and Martha Waggoner contributed to this report from Raleigh.
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