US firemen battle giant rubber blaze

Firefighters tackled a giant blaze fuelled by 5,600 tons of rubber at the Port of Savannah in Georgia, where a towering column of black smoke could be seen from miles away.

By The Newsroom

Published 10th Feb 2014, 00:00 BST

The fire department said yesterday its crews contained the fire, but it could take a while for the flames to burn out inside a warehouse covering 226,000 square feet at the port’s Ocean Terminal just west of central Savannah.

“It is contained,” Savannah Fire and Emergency Services spokesman Mark Keller said, after the fire had burned for at least five hours.

Firefighters were surrounding the warehouse with hoses on three sides and using industrial pumps to suck water from the Savannah River.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known, but all port workers were accounted for and unharmed.

No mandatory evacuations have been ordered, but the authorities are asking people in the historic district, Savannah’s tourism hub, to stay indoors as much as possible to limit exposure to the huge volume of smoke.