Fire cleanup begins
Residents return as investigators look for cause of blaze at Conyers plant
By DUANE D. STANFORD
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/27/04
A team of fire investigators waited today for cleanup crews to finish pumping out water, removing toxins and securing sagging walls at a burned out Conyers chemical warehouse.
"The building is still more or less unstable because you've got a lot of heat damage," said deputy chief Mike Lee with the Rockdale County Fire Department.
"If they go in there poking around we don't want walls falling in on them."
Firefighters also doused small flames hidden under sections of roof. Chemical gas continued to be a concern.
"We've still been having some small reactions," Lee said.
Rockdale firefighters are leading the investigation. The team includes investigators from the state fire marshal's office, BioLab's insurer, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Lee said the team is "hoping" to get into the building today.
Meantime, investigators continued interviewing company employees. They also watched video and studied photos of the fire. Officials shot some video from a helicopter at about 10 a.m. Tuesday morning, just hours after the fire broke out some time before 4 a.m. A department investigator took still pictures during the blaze to preserve further evidence.
"They've had plenty to look at," Lee said.
Lee would not say what investigators have learned so far about what caused the fire.
BioLab representatives referred calls to the company's communications director who had not yet returned a phone message left at her office.
Also some amazing pictures of the fire.
Darryl Brown, 32, embraces his 5-month-old daughter, Alicia, as they evacuate the Richfield Lodge in Conyers Tuesday morning.
Firefighters work the blaze at Bio-Lab in Conyers. The fire was expected to burn at least through Tuesday evening.
Light winds were blowing the giant plume of gray and black smoke eastward parallel to I-20. Smoke was visible from Lake Oconee, about 45 miles away.
An onlooker makes a phone call Tuesday from the scene of the huge blaze, which shut off traffic on Sigman Road and West Avenue.
A huge explosion inside the building sent black smoke skyward just before 7 a.m. and a few minutes later, officials shut down I-20 in both directions.
DeKalb County firefighters were also sent to the scene to assist Rockdale crews in battling the blaze, DeKalb dispatchers said.
The Rockdale County courthouse complex was closed for the day. County schools have already closed for the summer.
ajc.com reader Shannon Chamlee, who lives in Newborn, took this photo from I-20 on the way to work in Atlanta Tuesday morning.
Thick and heavy smoke drifted east and could be seen from Lake Oconee in Greene County by 8:30 a.m.
An overhead photo of the BioLab facility. The Federal Aviation Administration was in the process of restricting airspace around the site at 11 a.m. Tuesday.
Firefighters work from ladder trucks on a fire at a chemical plant near downtown Conyers early Tuesday morning.
Angela Doose of Covington captured this shot from I-20.
Authorities Tuesday evacuated a one-mile radius around the BioLab Inc. facility off Rockdale Industrial Boulevard.
The plume as seen from the Bernie Bourdon Bridge looking west on I-20 late Tuesday morning.
Surface streets surrounding the facility, including West Avenue headed into downtown Conyers, were also shut down
Sgt. T. S. Mester of the DeKalb Police Department made this photo at about 8 a.m. from I-20 eastbound near Stonecrest Mall in DeKalb County.
A huge plume of smoke soars skyward and blows east from a chemical fire at the BioLab Inc., facility on Dogwood Drive in Conyers Tuesday morning. The smoke could be seen for several miles from many areas of town, including this view from the top of Stone Mountain.
The view of the fire from Stone Mountain on Tuesday.
WOW. MY TEACHER HAD TO LEAVE HER HOME BECAUSE OF THIS. She lives in cumming but rides atleast an 1 1/2 to get to teach at North Gwinnett High school.
