WINSTON-SALEM, NC — A chemical warehouse here exploded into flames, sending workers fleeing the fire and dark smoke shooting skyward, after an accident involving hexane, a controversial detailing product used to clean tires.
The Winston-Salem Journal reported that P&B Distributors was destroyed in the blaze.
Two people were working with hexane, which spilled and ignited, starting the intense fire. John Lusk, P&B's owner, escaped with minor injuries, but the other, Charlie Smith, was in serious condition in a local hospital with severe burns, the article said.
The fire was fueled by more than 100 chemicals stored at the business, which supplies car dealerships and detailing businesses with such products as car wax, the newspaper said.
Hexane is used by some in the detailing industry to give tires a glossy finish. But many have called for it to be banned because it is a volatile and extremely flammable chemical.
According to environmental and health agencies, including the US Environmental Protection Agency, exposure to it can also cause skin and eye irritation, and it has been linked to serious nervous system damage.
Ron Ketcham, director of sales and technical services with Automotive International, Cincinnati, warned in an April 2002 article in Professional Carwashing & Detailing magazine ("Is hexane on the way out?") that if someone was using the product, and there was any type of spark nearby in the work area, "it'd be a fireball."
The Journal reported that Lusk and Smith were using a machine to siphon hexane from a container into a small plastic bucket and then into a 55-gallon steel container when some of the liquid overflowed.
Within seconds, Lusk and his employee running for their lives from an explosion-filled fire that destroyed the building, forced the evacuation of about 30 people who live nearby and sent a 200-foot-tall plume of acrid, black smoke skyward in downtown Winston-Salem, the newspaper said.
"It just went up, just like that," Lusk said, clapping his hands and throwing up his arms, the newspaper reported.
According to the newspaper, Lusk first used a squeegee to try to sop up what he could of the overflow, but the chemical began to seep into the brick floor of the warehouse and one stream leaked toward a bathroom, and was ignited by the pilot light of a water heater inside.
The fire leaped from the bathroom toward Lusk and Smith, who ran as fast as they could from the warehouse and the thundering sounds of 50 steel containers of toxic chemicals percolating in the heat, ready to blow, the newspaper said.
As firefighters sprayed down the smoldering remnants of P&B Distributors yesterday, environmental officials struggled to sort through exactly what chemicals were consumed by Tuesday's fire and what hazardous materials might be left in the charred debris, the Journal said.
Some of the runoff drained into a small, unnamed stream that runs behind the building and empties into Peters Creek, the article said.
Fire officials estimate the damage to the building at $400,000, the newspaper said.
In the April article in Professional Carwashing & Detailing Shawn Rowan, national sales manager for Ardex Laboratories of Philadelphia, commented on why his company stopped involvement in hexane about a dozen years ago.
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