By Ken Sugiura and Christian Boone
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

AP Photo/John Bazemore Fulton County firefighters work to contain the Monday morning blaze.

ATLANTA — It started just before sunrise, sending an ominous plume of black smoke across metro Atlanta on Monday. After crews extinguished the warehouse fire, an acrid smog still lingered off Fulton Industrial Boulevard into the evening hours, testament to a stubborn blaze officials believe was deliberately set.

"We do have reason to believe that it's more than just a coincidence," said Fulton County fire Lt. Gregory Chambers, noting that it was the second blaze in two months at the building.

No one was reported injured in the fire, which was fueled by bales of carpet remnants stored in the roughly 43,000-square-foot building at the corner of Mendel Drive and Selig Drive. Chambers said that the red brick building, just south of I-20 in an industrial district about nine miles west of downtown Atlanta, was vacant.

Arson is "not out of the realm of possibility," Chambers said. A preliminary report on the cause of the fire might be ready by Wednesday, he said.

Officials with the state Environmental Protection Division said that the smoke did not pose a significant threat to those in nearby neighborhoods. Harmful toxins from the burned material, hydrogen cyanide and vinyl chloride, were essentially undetectable, said Mary Smiley, an emergency environmental specialist with the EPD.

The two-alarm fire, which began about 7 a.m., was extinguished by 4 p.m., and crews remained throughout the night to monitor the smoldering remains.

The Fulton County Board of Assessors said that a company by the name of Premier Associates owns the property. A company representative could not be reached Monday.

The owner of the property was apparently planning to renovate the property. Dana Burton, a saleswoman for a Fairburn waste hauling company, said that her company was part of a contractor's bid for the project.

Burton stopped by the fire to gauge the damage, which included a collapsed roof and wall. Burton said her company, Walker Roll-Off, had plans to recycle about 90 percent of the carpet bales, which were reduced to soot blowing over metro Atlanta.

"It's a shame," she said.

Copyright 2008 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution