Thick plumes of dark smoke billowed above Macon’s Vineville neighborhood Thursday afternoon as fire engulfed the more than century-old Atlantic Cotton Mills facility.

Macon-Bibb County firefighters contained the fire -- that at times shot dozens of feet into the air -- and continued to work into the evening to extinguish the flames that gutted the property that was set to be turned into more than 100 lofts.

Macon resident Bo Stewart said he was driving behind the Kroger grocery store on Pio Nono Avenue just after 4 p.m. when he noticed smoke coming from the cotton mill complex. He called 911.

Across Pio Nono Avenue, Thom Phillips, of Burglar Alarm Products, heard about the fire from a client.

Phillips said he walked outside and saw what looked like a huge cloud of jet-black smoke rolling into the sky behind Kroger.

“It was almost like an atomic bomb,” Phillips said.

Standing behind the grocery store, he twice heard parts of the roof collapse.

“It was like a muffled explosion,” he said, likening it to a propane tank exploding.

At first, only part of the building was on fire, but he watched as flames tore through the rest of the complex.

Smoke barreling its way through the main wing of the building forced an adult raccoon to jump to its death from an upper window. In a matter of minutes, black smoke began pouring out along the roof line as the fire spread.

Fire Chief Marvin Riggins said about a dozen fire trucks responded to the blaze.

At first, two crews of firefighters went inside one of the mill buildings to fight the fire. All firefighters were outside when the roof started to collapse, Riggins said.

Assistant Fire Chief Cliff Rushin said crews had to pull back at one point because it got too dangerous.

“We backed all our firefighters out of the building,” Rushin said. “We were at one time pretty deep in the building. It just spread over us so fast we got them all out.”

No cause for the fire has been released.

One of firefighters’ main objectives was trying to keep the blaze from spreading to nearby apartments on English Avenue, Riggins said.

Apartment residents were evacuated Thursday afternoon, and many streets leading to the apartments and mill complex were blocked by traffic cones, police officers and emergency volunteers.

Robert Allen sat in a plastic chair near the rear fence at Clisby Towers watching the smoke billow above the apartments. He said he was inside his apartment watching “Judge Judy” on TV when his nephew came in and told him the old mill was burning.

He stepped outside his unit, located in the corner of the complex closest to the fire, and watched until police made him move farther away from the fire.

“It looked like horror,” Allen said. “It looked like we’d napalmed the place.”

Allen said the flames reached 40 feet into the air.

Riggins said its been awhile since his department battled such a ferocious fire. Winds whipped at 15 to 20 mph late Thursday afternoon.

“Lot of wind, old fat lighter (wood),” he said. “It got a good head start.”

No injuries were reported by early Thursday night, Riggins said.

All four wings of the building were engulfed in flames, said Josh Rogers, executive director of Historic Macon.

“It’s definitely a total loss,” he said.

The flames ate up a $13.5 million project of planned loft homes aimed at revitalizing the historic property, Rogers said as he watched the blaze.

He said he hopes the fire will develop a sense of urgency in the community to do something to revitalize the city’s historic structures before they’re lost.

“It’s just heartbreaking,” Rogers said.

Writer Liz Fabian contributed to this report. To contact writer Amy Leigh Womack, call 744-4398.