CONYERS, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) — A federal investigation into a 2024 fire at a pool-chemical warehouse outside Atlanta finds that corroded sprinklers and unsafe storage allowed a minor leak to turn into a major disaster.
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board on Tuesday released its final report on the Sept. 29, 2024, incident at the KIK Consumer Products/Bio-Lab Plant 12 warehouse in Conyers.
The fire shut down I-20 for a day, just as CSRA residents were trying to get to and from Atlanta to pick up supplies to recover from Hurricane Helene, which had hit the region two days earlier. The storm knocked out power for virtually everyone for days, gas stations and stores were closed, and water service was turned off for many.
Investigators say a failed, badly corroded sprinkler component leaked water onto large bags of pool-treatment chemicals inside the building. That water triggered a dangerous decomposition reaction, leading to intense heat, repeated fires and a towering plume of toxic smoke containing chlorine, hydrogen chloride, bromine and other gases.
Roughly 17,000 residents near the plant were evacuated, and about 90,000 people in the Atlanta metro area were told to shelter indoors because of the smoke. Nightly shelter?in?place warnings continued for 17 days within a two?mile radius. Property damage was estimated at about $50.5 million, and the warehouse was destroyed.
CSB Chair Steve Owens called conditions at the warehouse “completely unacceptable,” noting that it held nearly 14 million pounds of reactive pool chemicals — more than double the “average inventory” of 6.2 million pounds listed in documents submitted to local officials when the building was approved in 2019.
Those chemicals, mainly chlorinated isocyanurates used to disinfect pools and spas, were stored in about 5,000 “super sacks,” each weighing more than a ton. According to the report, the bags were not waterproof, the warehouse was not air?conditioned, and ventilation was not sufficient to control humidity, even though the chemicals can react with small amounts of moisture and release toxic gases.
Over time, chlorine fumes from the stored chemicals combined with humidity and formed hydrochloric acid on metal surfaces, including sprinkler heads, creating a highly corrosive environment. Inspectors documented more than 1,100 visibly corroded sprinkler heads outside a designated storage “bunker” in December 2023 — nine months before the fire.
Around 5 a.m. on the day of the incident, one of those corroded components failed, allowing water to hit the pool chemicals. As the chemicals decomposed and heated up, additional sprinklers activated, soaking more material and driving more reactions and gas releases throughout the warehouse. Fire crews initially knocked down a first fire, but heat from more decomposing chemical sacks and combustible packing materials led to a second blaze and partial building collapse.
The way the chemicals were stacked also made the emergency response more difficult, the CSB found. Many of the huge sacks were double?stacked in multiple rows against a wall, blocking responders from reaching and removing the first bags that began off?gassing. That helped the situation escalate into a full?scale fire and large toxic release.
KIK decided in May 2025 to permanently cease operations there and later put the property up for sale.