Smoke from burning rubber clouds sky as inferno destroys industrial park building

A thick plume of heavy black smoke rose into the sky over Macon just before 4:30 p.m. Saturday as a building at SD Polymers caught fire.

A Bibb County sheriff’s deputy called in the fire off the 600 block of Guy Paine Road in the Allied Industrial Park off Broadway in south Macon.

“There was no one in the building. It was closed at the time the fire started,” Bibb sheriff’s Deputy Clay Williams said, as fire crews attacked the flames from aerial ladders at the front and rear of the burning building at 121 Ennis Boulevard, owned by Damaste Warehousing, according to tax records.

Firefighters stationed at Bloomfield Road and Mercer University Drive came outside to see the smoke rising in the distance beyond Macon Mall, as crews closer to the fire raced to the scene.

When fire trucks and Bibb deputies arrived, flames were shooting out the back corner of the last of four or five buildings that make up the plant.

Brick walls split apart as the roof collapsed, making it difficult for fire crews to extinguish the flames.

“When the roof collapsed, it kind of pushed the walls out,” Macon-Bibb Fire Investigator Lt. Ben Gleaton said.

The stubborn fire was mostly contained by 7 p.m., but Gleaton expected crews to stay the night to battle hot spots.

“It’s full of pallets and pallets of folded up rubber,” Gleaton said.

The company was founded by Marco Danese as General Polymers in 1998 when it supplied raw materials to roofers, according to its website.

SD Polymers now also compounds plastic pellets for injection molders and has more than 120,000 square feet of warehouse space.

Firefighters were able to keep the flames from spreading to adjacent buildings.

“These old buildings have good fire walls in them,” Gleaton said.

It will likely be Sunday before investigators can begin to determine what started the fire.

This story was originally published November 12, 2016 at 7:12 PM with the headline "Smoke from burning rubber clouds sky as inferno destroys industrial park building."