People living within a half-mile of Mathis Farm Supply were evacuated when the fire erupted Tuesday morning. Later that night, about 3,000 evacuees returned home when the blaze was brought under control.
Streets reopened and the rest were allowed home Wednesday afternoon. About 25 people spent Tuesday night in a shelter at a church.
``We're in the process of making a dike around the site. We're going to spray water in a straight spray so that it will break up the fertilizer,'' Margaret Mixon, a local emergency management official, said Wednesday.
The cause of the fire is not known but could have been a cigarette, said Scott Adcock, a spokesman for the Alabama Emergency Management Agency.
No injuries were reported in the fire, and tests conducted by the state Tuesday determined that the thick smoke was not harmful, Adcock said.
Warehouse owner Nathan Mathis said his workers had unloaded 24 tons of a different type of fertilizer Tuesday morning. More than six fertilizer components were housed in the 8,000-square-foot warehouse, including potentially explosive ammonium nitrate.
Some liquid fertilizers also were stored in tanks.
Slocomb is in southeastern Alabama, a few miles from the Florida line.
