About 6,500 people have been told to evacuate their homes in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, because of a fire at a fertilizer plant where 600 tons of potentially exploded ammonium nitrate, said city officials on Tuesday.
Blaze in Weaver Fertilizer Factory Starting Monday night.
Residents in a mile (1.6 km) from the factory were urged to evacuate and stay away from their homes for up to 48 hours.
Winston-Salem Chief Fire William “Trey” Mayo said during a press conference on Tuesday that 500 tons of ammonium nitrate and 5,000 tons of fertilizers were on site when the fire began.
100 tons of other ammonium nitrates are in Railcar adjacent to the site.
If exposed to intense heat, ammonium nitrate can trigger an explosion.
Smoke from ammonium nitrate can also be an irritant, said fire.
“We can’t quite emphasize how important it is and how serious people need to take this.
If you are in a mile of plants, you need to go,” said Mayo.
There were no reported injuries and causes of fire were unknown.
The firefighters responded to the call at 18:45 local time on Monday and fighting fires for one and a half hours before they left their efforts to extinguish the fire due to the risk of explosion, Mayo said.
“At present, we are in the game waiting.
It is not worthy of a firefighters and trying to remove the fire,” said Matthew Smith, a dangerous material expert with North Carolina state.
“When the fire caught fire, it also lost fuel.” The Mayor City Pro Tempore Denise Adams, who lives near the facility, he said he was watching television when he heard the siren from a fire truck.
“A few minutes later, I heard this extraordinary boom,” Adams said during a press conference.
“Then, about an hour later, there is another boom.” On Tuesday, the state helicopter will take Hazmat specialists on facilities to access the situation and take photos.
“In addition to supervision of drones this morning, this will be the first real day we see it just to get an indication of how much fire involvement in the area where ammonium nitrate is stored,” Mayo said.
Officials monitor the quality of the area outside a one-mile radius of the facility.
Winston-Salem residents who have breathing conditions are urged to remain indoors.
Video recordings from drones show some large smoke feathers up from the site.
An unmanned old fire truck connected to the hydrant and waved the train filled with ammonium nitrate caught fire at the facility with water, the assistant head of the Jerry Hardison fire extinguisher said at a Facebook post.
“The area where ammonium nitrate is added not actively on fire at this time.
This is burning” Hardison said, noting that the fire temperature must be stored under 400 degrees Fahrenheit (204 ° C), the flame point of ammonium nitrate.
By 2020, a large-scale explosion in the warehouse used to store ammonium nitrate in Beirut, Lebanon, killed at least 100 people and was injured by almost 4,000, while the explosion at a Texas fertilizer factory killed 15 of 2013.
“We don’t get out of the forest,” Mayo said when asked to compare the situation in Winston-Salem with a deadly explosion before.