Georgia officials extended a shelter-in-place order indefinitely Monday morning for a county outside Atlanta where a chemical plant fire prompted a mass evacuation a day earlier.
“In the best interest and safety of the public and all citizens, it is recommended that businesses close operations until shelter-in-place is lifted,” Rockdale County officials said in a prepared statement.
Officials said federal and state testing showed dangerous airborne chlorine coming from the site of the blaze and said “The best practice is to turn the air conditioning off and keep windows and doors shut.”
The directive affects nearly 100,000 Rockdale County residents, local TV station WXIA reported.
About 17,000 people who live near the BioLab plant in Conyers, about 30 miles east of Atlanta, were told to evacuate Sunday after a chemical fire erupted there, sending a massive plume of black smoke into the sky.
Workers were inside when a fire started on the roof around 5 a.m. but no injuries were reported.
The flames on the roof were extinguished but a second fire started when chemicals inside the plant reacted with water from the building’s sprinkler system, Rockdale Fire Chief Marian McDaniel said late Sunday, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
BioLab sells products to test and treat water in swimming pools and hot tubs, according to its website.
The second fire was brought under control around 4 p.m. and the building has since collapsed, the AJC said.
But a plume continues to spew from chemicals that react with the water used to put out the blaze, according to WXIA.
In a statement Monday morning, BioLab said it was “working around-the-clock to respond to the ongoing situation” and had “deployed specialized teams from out of state” to assist local first responders.
“We are all focused on remediating the situation as rapidly as possible,” the company said.
Sunday’s fire was the third at the site in seven years, the AJC said, citing local officials.
BioLab is a division of Lawrenceville, Georgia-based KIK Consumer Products, which describes itself as “one of North America’s largest independent manufacturers of consumer products,” including Comet, Spic and Span and Top Job cleansers.
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