Westbound traffic on U.S. 31 was at 10:15 a.m. today (Friday, Jan. 6) still being diverted onto Industrial Drive as a fire continued to ravage a Tiger-Sul warehouse facility and threaten several sulfur-laden rail cars.
A thick, black, sulfur-laced cloud hovered over the fertilizer production facility, just off U.S. 31 and across from Atmore Country Club, as Atmore Fire Chief Ron Peebles and emergency personnel hurried to employ fire hydrants. Meanwhile, water was being shuttled to the fire site by Atmore Fire Department and Nokomis Volunteer Fire Department tankers.
Firefighters from Atmore and Poarch continued to battle the actual warehouse blaze while those from Nokomis sprayed down several rail cars loaded with molten sulfur, as well as the brush fire that broke out beneath them. Radio traffic at the site indicated that a Walnut Hill unit was on its way to join the fire-suppression effort.
City police have the federal highway blocked at Industrial Drive, and motorists who don’t live or work nearby are being sent around the fire.
An ambulance was on standby at the scene, but no reports of injuries had been received by 10:15 a.m.
Most of Tiger-Sul’s production facility had to be rebuilt after a 2017 blaze that was fought by firefighters from nearly a dozen agencies and caused the “sheltering in place” of several hundred Atmore residents.
Atmore News photos by Ditto Gorme