WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Winston-Salem Fire Chief Trey Mayo said they know where the fire started inside the Weaver Fertilizer Plant, but they still don't know how it started.
“We do have an idea of where we believe the fire began, yes,” Mayo said.
During the monthly Winston-Salem public safety briefing on Wednesday, Mayo detailed the timeline of the plant fire that displaced thousands last week.
Mayo said they aren't sharing the origin of the fire at this time, so as to not corrupt the investigation.
"I do not believe the fire began in the loading dock area," Mayo said.
According to Mayo, an investigation into the origin and cause may take a while.
"I think it’s going to be longer rather than shorter. When you have that much distraction, it creates some challenges on a cause and origin determination," Mayo said.
Fire officials said one of the first 911 calls came from a Weaver employee at the site around 6:45 p.m. Monday, Jan. 31. Officials said the employee reported smoke and flames from the loading dock area.
“I don’t know if that’s where – smoke may have been coming from the loading dock when the employee reported it. I don’t know yet what that correlation is between where we believe the fire began and the location of the loading dock. And I do not know specifics about how close the employee who reported the fire was to where the fire was burning at the time of the report,” Mayo said.
Mayo said they are interviewing Weaver employees as part of the investigation to learn more about the operations inside the plant. The incident will cost the department at least $30,000 in broken and lost equipment.
Mayo said the plant ceased operations for the day around 4:30 p.m. - a couple of hours before the fire was reported.
The fire remains under investigation.
What was Weaver required to report?
August Vernon, the director of Forysth County Emergency Management, said Winston Weaver last filed a Tier II report in 2019. Tier II is an annual federally mandated inventory of hazardous chemicals within a facility.
"It's good to have that information because it gives us a general idea of how much material there is, where it’s at, what materials are in the facility with the location," Vernon said.
Could Weaver change how other buildings are inspected?
Mayo was asked if officials are looking into other buildings around the city that were grandfathered into previous building codes, like the Weaver fertilizer plant. He said there is a "very preliminary discussion" on the subject.
Financial help for evacuees and monitoring air quality
The blaze displaced thousands of residents for three days. Weaver Fertilizer donated $50,000 to be put toward reimbursement of hotel bills for evacuees.
There's now a hotline evacuees can call to get their hotel bills reimbursed.
Those who were displaced also shared their concerns over the chemicals burned in the fire. Chief Mayo said Wednesday that the products that burned were described as irritants that would make you cough and could make your eyes water if you are sensitive to those chemicals.
"We don’t have the capacity to measure everything but from what we did have the capacity to measure, the things that would’ve given the EPA or the hazardous materials folks concern, they describe them as a relatively low toxicity outside the one-mile area where they were monitoring," said Mayo.
What we can learn from the fire
Mayo said environmental monitoring is continuing and the city is discussing hiring a consultant to look at their response to the fire.
"As much as anything, as we want other fire departments to learn what we did last week, both good and bad, because one of the things that was very beneficial to us, was we could (...) reference the chemical safety boards report on the West Texas fertilizer explosion, know what they did, didn’t do, how much they had relative to what we had and we were able to make some very good early decisions," Mayo added.
Other items out of the briefing:
Winston-Salem police also addressed other topics including, winter weather driving safety, community support during cold weather, and the police department's newest K-9 named Luigi.
You can watch the full briefing on our YouTube channel.
