JACKSONVILLE, Fla — The Logistec warehouse can handle about 55,000 tons of wood pellets, but handling them can be dangerous because the dust is highly explosive.
“Yes, it does concern us. it concerns us very well because this is not the first time that this happened, and we want to make sure protocols and safety features are put in place so it doesn’t happen again," said Mayor Cornell Harvey.
Harvey notes there was a previous explosion and fire at the business in 2015 and additional seven fires since then.
“It’s a business here that’s in the city of Brunswick and we are business-friendly but we want to be safety conscious as well, especially before our citizens," said Harvey.
Mayor Harvey says the port generates a lot of revenue for the state but there’s a cost to the city when an explosion happens.
This fire is expected to cost taxpayers about a quarter of a million dollars.
“It’s always a cost because my fire department responded. we have them doing overtime to make sure the fire is put out," said Harvey.
The Brunswick fire chief, Randy Mobley, says given the size of the fire it will still take some time.
“It’s made out of metal so the warehouse is kind of, well you can see a lot of it is still there but the pellets are under there burning and smoldering. So it’s going to take awhile to get that mitigated," said Mobley.
Bruce Foisy, District manager of Georgia’s Environmental protection division in Brunswick did an inspection this week. Foisy confirmed that the material burning at the warehouse was not toxic.
“We don’t have a hazardous material or toxic material per say associated with that. however I’m sure there’s some subsets of people that are not okay with wood smoke," said Foisy.