'I had a panic attack,' says Forsyth County official about air pollution from Weaver Fertilizer fire

Thirty-six hours after a catastrophic fire broke out at the Weaver Fertilizer plant, the air in this Winston-Salem neighborhood was practically unbreathable.

Levels of fine particulate matter, known as PM 2.5, peaked at more than 30 times the EPA’s eight-hour average.

“I had a panic attack,” Minor Barnette, director of the Forsyth County Office of Environmental Assistance and Protection, said. “I had never seen numbers like that.”

Even average levels of PM 2.5 — invisible particulates that burrow deep into the lungs — were so high that they were categorized as “hazardous” to public health, based on EPA guidelines.

Barnette debriefed the Environmental Management Commission yesterday on the Weaver Fertilizer fire, where 500 tons of ammonium nitrate ignited and burned from Jan. 31 until at least Feb. 6, when the building’s ruins were still smoldering. His account illustrated how close the city came to an unfathomable disaster. That includes a troubling discovery several days after the blaze of an open-air shed containing fertilizer which was leaching into a creek.

Read more: https://triad-city-beat.com/panic-attack-weaver-fertilizer-fire/