Two days later, smoke still rises from warehouse conflagration

May 5—Water from a firefighter's hose cascaded in sheets off of the tumbledown roof and onto the mountainous piles of soggy smoldering wood pellets Tuesday.

And yet thick billowing smoke still continued rising high over the fire-ravaged Logistec warehouse, which is sidled into a corner of Mayor's Point in the Port of Brunswick, just a stone's throw from the city's south end neighborhoods.

Two days after a blazing fire started with a boom at the cavernous warehouse Sunday night, wind swept smoke curled low over Newcastle Street and into residential streets beyond.

The thick smell of smoke wafted down Reynolds Street a block away where Pam Stewart stood in her driveway, shaking her head.

"We can't have an explosion and a huge fire a football field away from us," Stewart said. "Not again."

She was here in July 2015 when two older Logistec buildings filled with wood pellets went up in blazes. Smoke billowed into the neighborhoods and large flaring ambers dropped in yards as the two wood-framed warehouses burned to the ground.

The two roughly 50,000-square-foot buildings were replaced by a 139,000-square-foot steel-framed aluminum warehouse touted by Logistec as state-of-the-art, with interior sprinklers and a vacuum system to clear potentially flammable wood dust particles from the air.

At the time of its opening in October 2016, Logistec noted the new warehouse could store 50,000 tons of wood chips.

Brunswick Fire Chief Randy Mobley said the warehouse was chock-full when the fire erupted inside with an explosion about 7:30 p.m. Sunday.

By Monday morning, city firefighters had brought some semblance of control to the fire. Assistance came from Glynn County Fire Rescue, as well as neighboring fire departments from Camden, McIntosh, Chatham and Brantley counties. The towns of Pooler and Bloomingdale also sent units.

The massive building is now in ruins. Its aluminum roof is crumpled, collapsed with scattered gaping holes. The steel framing is twisted and buckling in places.

The soggy wood pellets, piled high inside, continue smoking with interior flare-ups that may simmer for days.

"It's still burning," Mobley said. "Those pellets are still burning. It's hard to get water in there to them when the roof is collapsed like it is."

Brunswick and county firefighters remained on scene around the clock, dousing the smoldering two-story wood pellet piles with water.

Most city firefighters have not had a proper break or rest since the call came in Sunday night, Mobley said.

"I can't estimate how long we'll be here," Mobley said. "I'd love to say we'll be able to get out of here tomorrow, but it could be next week, maybe longer. Half of the department hasn't even gone home yet."

Logistic is a multifaceted corporation associated with the maritime shipping and stevedoring industries. The wood pellets Logistec stores in Brunswick are shipped to mainly European countries to be used as biofuel in power plants.

In Brunswick, heat generated within the standing piles of wood pellets apparently conjures fires by spontaneous combustion, fire officials said.

After this most recent conflagration, Mobley hopes the local facet of Logistec will decide to set up business elsewhere.

"We're not happy that this amount of pellets, a flammable commodity, is being stored this close to a neighborhood," he said. "There is the safety factor and the cost factor to the city of Brunswick. So, yes, that would be great if they found another place to store these pellets."

While nothing near as destructive as Sunday's fire had occurred in the building, Brunswick firefighters have fought several wood pellet fires at the new warehouse since its opening nearly six years ago. The News has reported on fires there in 2017, 2018 and on Easter Day in 2019.

"We have flare-ups just about every year," Mobley said. "It's normally in July or August when it gets really hot, but this one came early, I guess."

It came with a racket that shattered a calm Sunday evening for Stewart and her husband, Steve Stewart.

"It was just a boom that rattled everything," Palm Stewart said. "The doors, the windows, I felt everything shaking."

Stewart has health issues affecting her lungs. Long lingering smoke from the 2015 fire gave her problems. She expects much the same in the aftermath of Sunday's fire.

"I started coughing the second it happened," said Stewart, who operates King's Square Academy Child Care Services in Brunswick. "Now we're in for months and months of the smell."

Brunswick firefighters typically work 24 hours at one of the city's two fire stations and then have 48 hours off. Most city firefighters are working 12-hour shifts at the warehouse fire and 12-hour shifts at one of the fire stations, where they can at least rest when not responding to calls.

In 2015, Brunswick firefighters did not officially stand down from the Logistic fire site until mid September, nearly 60 days later. Logistec reimbursed the city for much of the overtime incurred as a result.

Logistec employs about 40 people locally.

Logistec's offices in Montreal, where the company is headquartered, did not return a call from The News on Tuesday.

Stewart is no more eager than Mobley to see operations return to normal at the Logistec site.

"I think I'm ready to read 'em the riot act," she said. "They didn't change anything. It was just as bad, if not worse. This is not good for me, health-wise. It's not good for the community. It's ridiculous. If that's state-of-the-art, then I'm seriously concerned."