Rain that fell during the night February 2 proved to be both good and bad news for the evacuated residents. While it helped calm the fire, it also pushed smoke that is likely harmful to people’s health closer to the ground, the Associated Press reported. However, Winston-Salem Fire Chief Trey Mayo said at a Thursday news conference the rain and “cooling operations” have “greatly diminished” a previous explosion threat caused by hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate inside the facility.
Newsweek previously reported that officials asked everyone within a 1-mile radius of the Winston Weaver Company plant to evacuate their homes after the fire broke out on the evening of January 31.
Though Mayo did not provide an estimate on when the evacuees could return to their homes, he said now that experts have determined it is safe to approach the site of the blaze, firefighters can get close enough to set up more unmanned sprayers, the AP reported.
At a briefing earlier in the day Feburary 3, Winston-Salem Battalion Chief Patrick Grubbs said officials continue to ask people to evacuate the area. Additionally, the Forsyth County Office of Environmental Assistance and Protection posted a message on Nextdoor on February 3 asking residents to avoid the smoke the rain created.
“A smoke plume from the fire will continue to impact local air quality until the fire is extinguished,” it said, adding that people with respiratory issues like asthma should take special caution.
During the earlier briefing, Grubbs said firefighters monitoring the fire had to keep about 300 feet away due to safety concerns. According to CBS News, Mayo said there were almost 600 tons of ammonium nitrate and another 5,000 tons of finished fertilizer, which commonly contains ammonium nitrate, at the plant when the fire broke out.
Though ammonium nitrate is not classified as an explosive material, it can become dangerous when exposed to fire. For comparison, the August 2020 explosion in Beirut, which killed 220 people and injured over 6,500 more, was caused by about 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate igniting, Frontiers in Public Health reported.
At a Wednesday news conference, Mayo said “at the beginning of this incident, there was enough ammonium nitrate on hand for this to be one of the worst explosions in U.S. history,” CBS News reported.
According to the AP, firefighters have since inspected a railcar near the fire site that had ammonium nitrate in it and determined it had not caught fire, which allowed firefighters to get closer and make a greater effort to put out the blaze.
The AP report added it could still take several more days to fully put out the fire and there continues to be a risk of the firefighting efforts jostling some ammonium nitrate and reigniting some of the fire.
In the meantime, authorities continue to urge the evacuees to keep away from the area.
