The chemical fire that raged in Canberra's inner north all of yesterday bringing turmoil to the capital was finally extinguished last night.
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As the mop-up begins in Mitchell today, the ACT Government will turn its attention to reviewing the performance of its emergency phone alert system which generated some complaints and confusion from inner-north residents.
Despite the fire being put out late last night, Mitchell is expected to remain in lockdown over the weekend, as firefighters decontaminate the site.
Before the victory over the blaze, authorities feared explosions similar to those that woke Canberra residents yesterday could be repeated over the weekend.
The blasts came after flames burnt through oil at the Energy Services Invironmental factory in Dacre Street.
The huge fire which began just before midnight on Thursday was believed to have been fuelled by drums of PCB-contaminated oil and transformer oil. It had been feared that the huge plume of smoke, which drifted across northern Canberra, contained phosgene - a chemical compound used in mustard gas, a biochemical weapon used in World War 1.
ACT Emergency Service Agency chief Mark Crosweller said yesterday that early fears about a toxic plume had ''abated'' but the agency continued to stress that the smoke was potentially toxic throughout the afternoon. Fireballs leaped continuously into the air yesterday, some reaching up to 200m above the factory's collapsed roof.
Dennis Gee, who works at Capital Pinball in the Mitchell industrial area, was playing video games when he felt strange vibrations rattling the store's glass. He walked out on to Vicars Street after hearing explosions to discover a raging blaze engulfing the factory less than 1km away.
''You can definitely see the blaze, you knew it was intense,'' Mr Gee said. ''It was like a sun but a lot bloody closer.''
Mr Gee was evacuated to Dickson College with about 200 other people.
As the huge disruptions to traffic, schooling and sporting events began to pass late yesterday, attention was focused on the Government's emergency response.
Mobile and home phone emergency notifications, used for the first time by the Emergency Services Agency, were the subject of some criticism by inner-north residents. Text messages and phone calls were received by residents living in many inner-north suburbs, warning them to stay inside, turn off heaters and air conditioners, and shut windows and doors.
But some residents told The Canberra Times they did not receive a text message or a phone call, while others living interstate reported receiving emergency text messages and phone calls. The mobile phone numbers selected for emergency texts were collected from billing addresses and the home numbers from telecommunication companies.
Commissioner Crosweller said that some Canberrans who had recently moved to the inner north without changing their billing address may have missed out on the text message. Others may have missed automated calls because their phone was off, or because they simply slept through the call.
Emergency texts had also contained glaring spelling errors, which led some residents to question whether they were fake. Chief Minister Katy Gallagher said the phone alert system would be closely looked at by the Government. ''As with any incident like this, there's always areas where you can reflect and review and improve,'' she said.
Concerns also remained over the possible contamination of nearby waterways, after chemicals had leaked into nearby ponds.
Sullivans Creek, which flows into Lake Burley Griffin, has been barricaded.
No one was hospitalised as a result of the toxic smoke or the blaze, although a security guard reportedly suffered smoke inhalation.