SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Firefighters
battled a giant blaze fueled by 5,600 tons of rubber Saturday at the
Port of Savannah, where a towering column of black smoke could be seen
from miles away.
By late
Saturday, the fire department said its crews had contained the fire, but
it could take a while for the flames to burn out inside a warehouse
covering 226,000 square feet at the port's Ocean Terminal just west of
downtown Savannah.
"It is
contained," Savannah Fire and Emergency Services spokesman Mark Keller
said late Saturday afternoon, after the fire had burned for at least
five hours. "Will it burn all night? There's no telling. It's solid
blocks of rubber that are burning."
Keller
said firefighters were surrounding the warehouse with hoses on three
sides and using industrial pumps to suck water from the Savannah River
and blast in through water cannons. Crews will continue soaking into the
night and Sunday if necessary.
The cause of the fire wasn't immediately known, but all port workers were accounted for and unharmed.
No
mandatory evacuations have been ordered. Authorities are asking people
in the downtown historic district, Savannah's tourism hub, to stay
indoors as much as possible to limit exposure to smoke.
"Please limit the time you're out," Keller said, adding he
didn't expect people to cancel dinner reservations or shopping trips.
"If you're finished at the restaurant or finished with shopping, go back
to your hotel room or go home."
Keller said firefighters probably won't be able to get close enough to investigate the cause until Sunday.
"Solid rubber blocks, they're going to burn and we're going to keep putting water on it," Keller said. "We'll just do it until the fire's out."
Savannah-Chatham County police closed some streets near the port terminal and smoke slowed traffic on the Talmadge Bridge that spans the Savannah River to South Carolina. Police also asked a few hotels near the port terminal and the Savannah College of Art and Design, which has buildings in the area, to either evacuate or keep people inside.
"We're not worried about the fire getting over there at this point," said police spokesman Julian Miller. "It's the smoke. It's going to be heavy, oily and ugly."
Robert Morris, spokesman
for the Georgia Ports Authority, said the burning area contained about
5,600 tons of imported raw rubber used in manufacturing.
"The warehouse is full of rubber, so it's a rubber fire," he said.
June
Kramarczyk of Bluffton, S.C., and her husband were traveling to
Savannah when they saw the smoke plumes rising in the distance. They
pulled over once they reached the river to get a better look.
"It's
covering the whole sky in front of us, almost as if there was a volcano
going off," Kramarczyk said. "We could see the smoke from 15 miles
away. My husband said, 'That's got to be a huge fire.'"
Morris said smoke could be seen from Tybee Island, about 18 miles east of the port terminal.
The
Port of Savannah is the nation's fourth-busiest seaport for
containerized cargo. The Ocean Terminal, which covers 200 acres, handles
farm equipment and other heavy machinery as well as automobiles and
bulk goods such as wood products and steel.
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