By Toby Coleman
The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina)
Copyright 2006 The News and Observer

The chemical inferno that cleared out Apex this month started as a small warehouse fire that might have been contained had the facility owner built firewalls and other fire suppression devices, according to the federal Chemical Safety Board.

Investigators for the board said Monday that they think the blaze did not start raging out of control until it spread from the area where the company stored trashed pool chemicals, cyanide sludge and other material.

It did not take long to spread, causing the evacuation of thousands of residents from their homes on the night of Oct. 5. About 30 people were treated for respiratory difficulties related to the blaze, which raged for more than a day, leaving behind little more than charred remains of the warehouse and its contents.

"The design of this facility, when you look at it, was set up more to prevent liquids from spilling than fire from spreading," said Robert Hall, who is leading the CSB's investigation.

A 6-inch-tall curb separated the oxides from the flammable wastes in EQ Industrial Services' hazardous waste warehouse. There was no fire suppression system to slow the blaze down.

Hall and his team of investigators announced Monday that they will do a full investigation, an effort that could take up to a year.

"The fire in Apex raises a number of questions," said CSB Chairwoman Carolyn W. Merritt, "including whether better fire detection, protection, firewalls, and separation measures could improve the safety of hazardous waste facilities — especially those close to residential neighborhoods."

EQ spokesman Robert Doyle welcomed the investigation and said his company would support "any additional measures that promote the safe and efficient operation of hazardous waste facilities in North Carolina and the United States."

Before the fire, EQ's plan to contain fires was to have workers isolate smoking barrels, among other things. Doyle said the company did not put firewalls or a fire suppression system in the warehouse because state regulators did not require them.

"We are highly regulated," he said. "I can't stress enough: In the business we are in, we know we have to meet the state requirements to do business."

In North Carolina, that means building safeguards and instituting policies that will prevent chemical reactions. In a 2004 application for a hazardous waste storage permit, EQ promised the state Division of Waste Management that its Apex workers would separate substances that could react with each other, repair containers before they could leak and maintain safeguards like 6-inch curbs to keep a spill in one waste bay from spreading to another.

The company's fire prevention plan, meanwhile, banned smoking in the warehouse, limited welding and other "hot work" near flammable waste and required workers to use "intrinsically safe tools" that would guard against sparks.

If a fire popped up, the company hoped workers could isolate it and put it out with extinguishers, according to the permit application.

It was a flawed plan, in part because no one worked in the warehouse at night.

As a result, nobody noticed the yellow cloud pouring from the southeast corner of the building on Investment Boulevard until about 9:30 p.m.

By then, the haze and a distinct smell of swimming pool chemicals had reached Investment Boulevard and Schieffelin Road.

Firefighters arrived, fought their way through the haze and spotted a small fire at the southeast corner of the building. They retreated, fearing that the trashed pool chemicals they smelled in the vapor were toxic chlorine gas.

Shortly, barrels of flammable waste inside the warehouse began to explode with thundering booms, and fireballs shot into the air .

CSB investigators must now try to figure out who, if anyone, is responsible for leaving incompatible wastes close enough to each other to spark the fire.

It won't be easy. Perhaps it was an EQ worker, Hall said, perhaps a customer.

Hall said his team may never know. The fire consumed most of the evidence.