APEX, N.C.-
Firefighters brought a once-raging chemical plant fire under control early Saturday, more than a day after it filled the sky with a noxious yellow haze and chased hundreds of people from their homes.
Officials warned late Friday that the blaze could smolder into Sunday under the protection of twisted metal and unstable walls. But with the aid of heavy machinery, firefighters removed the barrier and attacked the remaining hot spots.
“It’s essentially out, but they just want to make sure,” Wake County spokeswoman Sharon Brown said. “This fire is very unpredictable.”
Firefighters started the deliberate work of trying to extinguish the smoldering remains of the EQ Industrial Services plant by spraying a fire-retardant foam on the heap Friday night. They didn’t move in closer earlier because of the dangerous fumes rising from a fire fed by industrial wastes including paints, solvents, pesticides and weed killer.
“The pace at which we are going has more to do with an investigation,” said Capt. Keith Wilder of the Raleigh Fire Department, a hazardous materials specialist. “We want to make sure that we fully document everything and we preserve all evidence.”
The fire began late Thursday, and officials soon begged people to stay away from the city’s downtown. They initially urged about half of Apex’s 32,000 residents to evacuate, then expanded the request as a dangerous plume of smoke and chemicals started to move.
“We weren’t talking about the town bakery,” said Police Chief Jack Lewis.
He said he was nauseated all night and that several of the first police officers to arrive at the fire required medical care for respiratory problems, chest pains and nausea.
Several hundred people took shelter at area schools, but Mayor Keith Weatherly said officials were unsure how many people actually left their homes. About 30 people remained at the last of the shelters Friday night before EQ Industrial officials offered to send them all to hotels.
The fire disrupted the lives of thousands.
The business district of the Raleigh suburb was shut down Friday, schools were closed and nearly all the night’s high school football games were canceled.
No serious injuries were reported. Wake County officials said 44 people went to emergency rooms, most complaining of respiratory problems. All were released by Friday afternoon.
The cause of the blaze was not immediately known.
“Because of the many different types of waste that we bring in, it’s very difficult to determine the cause of the fire,” EQ spokesman Robert Doyle said.
State Department of Environment and Natural Resources officials said Friday their tests “had not detected anything out of the ordinary in the air.” The state also determined that water supplies downstream from the fire appeared to be safe, though they were still conducting additional tests.
In March, the state fined EQ $32,000 for six violations at the plant, including failing to take steps to “minimize the possibility of a sudden or non-sudden release of hazardous waste … which could threaten human health or the environment.”
Doyle cautioned the violations might not have had anything to do with the fire, and the state said the company had passed a required inspection as recently as Sept. 28-29.
Last year, a similar fire at one of the company’s plants in Romulus, Mich., drove about 2,000 people from their homes and sent at least 32 people to hospitals for treatment.
An investigation is still active, said Robert McCann, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. He said in an e-mail that extensive damage from the fire had made it difficult to determine a cause and whether there were any violations at the plant.
Scott Maris, the company’s vice president of regulatory affairs, said EQ would reimburse residents for expenses incurred during the evacuation.
“We’re in grief to have created this inconvenience and misfortune for folks,” Maris said. “We are doing everything we can to make it right in the community.”
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