Atlanta issues warnings about chemical plant fire with smoke visible miles away

Some residents east of Atlanta were evacuated while others were told to shelter in place on Sunday to avoid contaminants from a chemical plant fire that sent a huge tower of dark smoke into the air that could be seen from miles away.

Interstate 20 was shut down in both directions in the area, the Georgia department of transportation said in a post on X. Reports said traffic was snarled as vehicles backed up.

The fire ignited when a sprinkler head malfunctioned about 5am on Sunday at the BioLab plant in Conyers, the Rockdale county fire chief, Marian McDaniel, told reporters. The malfunction caused water to mix with a water-reactive chemical, producing a plume of chemicals.

She said there were employees inside the plant, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The newspaper said the billowing cloud of smoke was visible on Sunday afternoon as far as 30 miles (50km) away at Atlanta’s international airport. It added no injuries were immediately reported.

“Once we can get that chemical out of the building and allow it to burn off, we’ll be in a much better shape,” McDaniel said.

McDaniel said she was not sure which chemicals may have been contained in the plume. But a report on the Atlanta news station WXIA on Monday said federal and state testing had shown the presence of chlorine in the air, citing information from Rockdale county officials. It was not immediately known which other chemicals may be present, WXIA added.

Acute ingestion of chlorine at higher concentrations (nine and 50 parts per million) can cause difficulty breathing, nausea, vomiting, headache and chest pain, among other symptoms, according to the US government’s National Library of Medicine.

In a public safety alert sent to residents’ cellphones, officials claimed the chemical levels involved “are unlikely to cause harm to most people”. Nonetheless, the alert said authorities had declared “a local area emergency”.

BioLab’s website says it is the swimming pool and spa water care division of KIK Consumer Products, based in Lawrenceville, Georgia. An automated message at the phone number on the parent company’s website said to call back during business hours.

“We are actively responding to an occurrence at our facility in Conyers, Georgia,” a BioLab representative said in a statement provided to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Our employees are accounted for with no injuries reported. Our team is on the scene, working with first responders and local authorities to assess and contain the situation.”

A small fire on the plant’s roof was initially contained, but reignited on Sunday afternoon, said the sheriff, Eric Levett, in a video posted on Facebook as grey smoke spewed into the sky behind him. He said authorities were trying to get the fire under control and urged people to stay away from the area.

People in the northern part of Rockdale county, north of Interstate 20, were ordered to evacuate and others were told to shelter in place with windows and doors closed. Sheriff’s office spokesperson Christine Nesbitt did not know the number of people evacuated, but said it covered a large portion of the community of Conyers.

WXIA reported that the 17,000 people in Conyers had been ordered to evacuate, and 100,000 people in surrounding Rockdale had been told to shelter in place.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Georgia environmental protection division were both on site, the county emergency management director, Sharon Webb, said. The agencies are monitoring the air “to give us more of an idea of what the plume consists of”.

McDaniel said crews were working on removing the chemical from the building, away from the water source. Once the product is contained, the situation will be assessed and officials will let residents know whether it is safe to return to their homes, she said.

Guardian staff contributed to this report