BRUNSWICK, Ga. — UPDATE 10:25 P.M.: Officials: Pinova factory fire is out, evacuation and shelter-in-place orders lifted
UPDATE 5:40 P.M.: Officials are asking anyone who lives within a 1/2 mile radius of the factory to evacuate. We will update when this advisory is lifted.
A fire that began Saturday morning at the Pinova resin manufacturing plant in Brunswick has now reignited, officials are reporting.
The Glynn County Board of Commissioners is asking residents to shelter in place if they live in St. Simons Island north of the St. Simons Island Airport or live in a one mile radius of the plant.
The Brunswick City Fire Department and Glynn County Fire Rescue are on scene.
Pinova Senior Director of Operations Ron Kurtz said Saturday morning that the fire was in the plant's terpene resins unit.
"It was terpene resins," Kurtz said when asked about the smoke plume. "This is material you use every day, a lot of adhesives, glues, that's where this material's going. It's also used in some food products."
The emergency management director for the county said Saturday morning one of their initial goals was to identify what chemicals could be involved in the plume of smoke.
"We immediately contacted National Weather Service to get a plume model to see where the the cloud was going," said Andrew Leanza, director of Glynn County Emergency Management and Homeland Security. "So we identified it, our initial isolation zones, we weren't concerned when we looked at the ERG once we identified the chemicals so it was in our favor today. But that was something that we've been monitoring and we'll continue to monitor."
The Pinova resin factory is on the site of a former pesticide plant, known as Hercules. That plant discharged the chlorinated pesticide toxaphene into a ditch leading to nearby Terry and Dupree creeks, contaminating sediments, water and fish. Those areas were later designated federal Superfund sites, and a fish consumption advisory remains in place.
This is not the first time these first responders or this community have dealt with something like this lately. In November multiple explosions occurred at Symrise chemical plant in Brunswick.
First Coast News asked what the officials want to say to Glynn County residents who are worried.
"We have been talking in the last few weeks and we're talking real close this morning," said Brunswick Fire Chief Tim White. "Us and the county are going to work together because the other one was in the county, this one was in the city. We're going to work together with our inspection divisions to be closely monitoring these plants and get more information firsthand before we have an incident."
DiCristofalo said it took nine apparatuses, 25 firefighters and roughly an hour and a half to put the initial fire out. The cause of the fire is under investigation and Kurtz says a full report will be released in about two weeks.
This is a developing story and we are waiting for word from officials about the re-ignited fire.
The below picture shows what the plant looked like on Saturday morning. We are working to get updated images.
