Fire chief: Contractor at Arkansas mill warned of safety issue days before blaze

One minute after a series of explosions sent a demolition crew running from a shuttered plywood mill in southwest Arkansas on Saturday, firefighters arrived at the scene.

All the crew members had made it out of the Georgia Pacific mill in Crossett before the fire spread, and no injuries were reported.

But when firefighters looked for a source of water, they found the pipes inside the building had been turned off and could not be turned back on again, Crossett Fire Captain Ray Lewis said.

“When you don’t have water, you can’t put out a fire,” Lewis noted.

Earlier that week, the crew had turned off the pipes to prepare for the demolition of the mill, which had been idle since 2011 and shut for good in 2016, according to Georgia Pacific spokeswoman Jennifer King.

Two days before the fire, Crossett Fire Chief Bo Higginbotham said he learned the water was off and went to meet with representatives of GSD, the Houston-based contractor hired for the demolition. At the meeting, he said representatives of GSD refused to turn the water back on.

“But they assured us they could turn on the water quickly if anything were to happen,” Fire Marshall Michael Willhite said. “And that was not the case.”

The plant’s fire suppression system was not functioning either, King said in an email Sunday.

By 11 a.m., the fire department had evacuated the blocks surrounding the mill. It was still on fire when residents and employees at nearby fast-food restaurants returned around 4 p.m.

The fire was contained during the day, but a team of firefighters remained throughout the night to monitor the smoldering structure. On Sunday, a Georgia Pacific team was still scouring the town for charred pieces of the mill. Debris floated as far as the Louisiana border, Willhite said.

By Monday, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration had begun an “inquiry” into the fire, according to area director Carlos Reynolds. Representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency were at the scene in Crossett over the weekend as well, though the office could not immediately confirm their findings.

Willhite said the fire department will complete its own investigation by Tuesday.

GSD did not respond to a message seeking comment.