Six firefighters were hospitalized Tuesday after being exposed to a "chemical haze" emitted from a warehouse on Port Carteret Drive, officials said.
Borough firefighters responding to the warehouse around 2 a.m. found smoke, but no flames, said Carteret fire Chief Mark Hruska.
"It was smoke from a chemical reaction," he said.
The haze being discharged from the roughly 500,000-square-foot facility was caused by a chemical reaction of acrylate monomer, Hruska said.
According to property tax records, the warehouse is owned by Cyprus Amax Minerals Company. The company, Hruska said, doesn't process the chemicals, but rather houses the raw materials for overseas shipment. The warehouse manager had arrived at the facility early Tuesday morning and reported the smoke to the fire department. Thinking it was a fire, the manager had opened the doors to ventilate the facility before firefighters arrived. When the firefighters got to the scene, "they were hit with a down draft that had blown out of the warehouse," Hruska said.