By Yolanda Jones
The Commercial Appeal
Copyright 2006 The Commercial Appeal, Inc.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — As four ladder trucks pumped water down onto the smoldering bales of cotton, all E.W. Atkinson Jr. could do Sunday was watch and pray that the fire didn’t spread to his remaining warehouses.
Atkinson, the owner of Planters Gin Co. warehouse, estimated that the more than 20,000 cotton bales that were destroyed in Saturday’s fire were worth $2 million.
Huge tornado-shaped plumes of smoke could be seen for miles Saturday as the fire torched the 24,000 to 25,000 cotton bales inside the warehouse at 1824 Castalia at Keltner Circle shortly after 10 a.m.
A shipment of cotton had arrived over the last four to five days, putting the warehouse at its capacity, Atkinson said.
“We had just gotten the warehouse full after it stood empty half the year,” Atkinson said. “Fire knows when it’s full.”
Sunday, as he looked at the soggy bales that resembled mounds and mounds of dirty snow, he said he was thankful the fire didn’t damage the Thompson Court Apartments across the street from the warehouse.
“No one was injured and that is a blessing,” he said.
Working in three-hour shifts, Memphis Fire Department crews will continuously pump water onto the bales that are still burning from the inside.
Memphis Fire Battalion Chief T.B. Seever said this will continue over the next few days.
“We have to keep the bales wet to contain the hot spots,” he said.
The fire started in the loading area of the warehouse that was built in 1947.
The cotton is bought and shipped to the warehouse, where it is held until it is sent to the company’s processing center on Mallory. The cotton is then sold to companies that make yarn and industrial fabrics from the cotton, Atkinson said.
He said that 40,000 bales in remaining warehouses were not damaged by the fire as fire walls and fire doors stopped the blaze from spreading.
The cause of the blaze was still under investigation, but Atkinson speculated that one of the shipments from Texas might have been smoldering and sparked the blaze.
“But we still really don’t know,” Seever said.