Supplier’s Warehouse Damaged by Fire

A far-reaching chemical blaze at the site of a green industry supplier’s warehouse necessitated small-scale evacuations in Cumming, Ga., on the morning of Jan. 22.

The inferno broke out around 7:45 a.m. at the Regal Chemical Plant, said Danny Bowman, director of the Forsyth County Emergency Management Agency. Growing flames consumed the 10,000-square-foot building, filling the sky with plumes of smoke that could be seen from 10 miles away.

Although authorities have not yet named an official cause of the fire, the preliminary assumption is that a faulty thermostat is to blame.

“They were cooking some things in a commercial oven – a large oven that they use to make their product with, and that possibly a thermostat failed and caught the product on fire inside the oven,” commented Fire Chief Dwight Clark.

Workers were inside the production plant at the time of the explosion, but all are safely accounted for. No injuries have been reported.

Because firefighters were unclear about the specific chemicals that were burning, they could not use water to douse the flames. That uncertainty prolonged treatment of the blaze.

“We had a lot of explosions,” Clark recalled. “There were containers. I’m not sure what they were. A lot of flashes. A lot of popping going on.”

Hazmat workers helped the Forsyth County firefighters muster control over the blaze and assess potential threats to the vicinity – part of which collapsed in flames.

WXIA-TV Atlanta contributed to this report.