* Monday, August 12, 2019
This page will be updated regularly as information becomes available.
Throughout today our contractor has continued to bring additional equipment onto the site and to prepare the site to begin the work to extinguish the fire. Extinguishing the fire will be done by pulling the pile apart, ensuring the material pulled from the pile is not burning and shipping the material to an approved landfill.
Smoke forecast for Tuesday, August 13, 2019:
With rather calm winds expected during the overnight hours, smoke will likely thicken in the immediate vicinity of the Able Contracting facility through the overnight period. An increase in southeast winds will likely shift the smoke plume towards the northwest mid-morning through the afternoon, possibly causing higher levels of smoke along Argent Blvd in the area near the Abberly Chase and Brook Mill apartments. The smoke is likely to be more concentrated during the overnight and into the mid-morning hours on Tuesday. Locations closest to the Able Contracting Recycling facility along Schinger Avenue are more likely to experience smoke at any given time.
The Smoke Forecast Hotline has been established to provide the daily forecast and allow community members to leave messages if they have additional questions. The Smoke Forecast Hotline phone number is 803-898-4262 or 1-800‐204-1842.
The DHEC PM2.5 sensor was moved as of 12:00 pm on August 12, 2019 from Palmetto Exterminators to Okatie Elementary. All data after 12:00 pm on August 12, 2019 will be from Okatie Elementary School. Because the monitor is further away we expect the levels to be much lower. It will take about 10 days for the data from the old location to roll off. The URL to access the data is: http://tinyurl.com/MOIX17468.
For media inquiries: media@dhec.sc.gov.
For other inquiries: ablefire@dhec.sc.gov.