Fire Keeps Rages for 4th Day, Risking Blast at N.C. Fertilizer Plant

(Bloomberg) -- Firefighters are cooling stores of a highly flammable chemical compound at a burning fertilizer plant in North Carolina, marking progress in efforts to prevent an explosion at the site.

The risk of explosion at Winston Weaver Co.'s Winston-Salem plant “greatly diminished” overnight Wednesday into Thursday as emergency workers were able to begin cooling the product in and around the plant, though it is difficult to say how long it will take to finish, fire chief Trey Mayo said.

“Mitigation work on site includes fire suppression,” a fire department spokesperson said in video posted to social media Friday afternoon. “Heavy equipment is being brought in to assist with those efforts.”

Given the new circumstances, the fire department reduced the one-mile evacuation order to 660 feet from the plant effective 8 p.m. local time Thursday, it said in a tweet. Residents had been forced to flee the area after the facility caught fire Monday night.

“If we're there a week it won't surprise me,” Mayo said at a Thursday news conference, adding that the greatest risk of blast right now is by emergency personnel moving hot product and the remnants of buildings, which could provide the air needed to rapidly ignite.

The facility which makes ammonium nitrate has the same type of fertilizer behind deadly past explosions, including a 2020 blast that devastated Beirut's port. It also has a bigger stockpile than there was at a Texas plant that exploded in 2013, killing 15 people and damaging more than 150 structures across a 35-block area.

The building was built before mandates on fire-suppression systems and didn't have sprinklers, Mayo said. Though it's difficult to speculate, if the facility had had a sprinkler system it should have been able to control the fire, based on historical data, he said.

A fire inspection report from Dec. 27 said that at the time of the checkup there were no hazards or violations.

The Winston-Salem fire consumed the whole building, causing it to collapse, and about 6,000 people living within a one-mile radius of the plant were told to evacuate.

The facility had about 5,000 tons of finished fertilizer and 500 tons of the chemical compound inside at the beginning of the fire. It also had about 90 tons of ammonia nitrate in a rail car beside the building, according to Mayo.

People with respiratory conditions in the area should continue to limit outside activity, the spokesperson said in the video update on Friday.

Fertilizer Market

While the U.S. fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate market accounts for a fraction of total domestic nitrogen consumption, it comes at a tumultuous time for the market. Nutrient prices have surged to records around the world following an energy crunch that curbed production in Europe, while fertilizer supplies also face threats from export curbs and trade sanctions.

That's adding to costs for farmers and prompting some to curb fertilizer usage, threatening to curb crop yields and further raise global food prices that are near a record high.

A representative for Winston Weaver has said that all employees are safe. Wake Forest University, which is mostly outside of the evacuation area, canceled classes for the rest of the week at some locations.