LEWISTON – Police evacuated more than 50 homes and businesses Sunday evening while firefighters battled a potential chemical fire inside Philips Elmet Corp. on Lisbon Road.

For nearly two and a half hours, emergency workers worried that hydrochloric acid and other chemicals may have burned in the fire, sending plumes of toxic smoke in the air.

Paul LeClair, Lewiston’s assistant fire chief, worried for more than an hour that chemicals had ignited.

No chemicals caught fire, though. And no one was hurt.

LeClair said the blaze apparently ignited somewhere in a system of ducts and vents leading from the factory, which makes light bulb components.

“We had to be cautious,” LeClair said. “So we took a very big step back.”

Minutes after the fire was first reported at 5:30 p.m., traffic was being diverted around the Route 196 plant, shutting down a portion of the busy road and diverting cars.

As smoke rose from the plant, police began evacuating nearby Dunn and Winn streets.

“Residents of Drew Street, you need to evacuate your homes now,” a patrol officer in a police cruiser announced over a loudspeaker, driving slowly down the streets near the factory.

Minutes later, police were knocking on doors, asking people to get in their cars, drive away and check back with them in a few hours.

Drivers tried squeezing past the road blocks, which kept moving as the fire continued. As emergency workers smelled smoke in the air, they moved the roadblocks further from the factory. Rain and humidity helped keep the smoke near ground level, further worrying experts who wished a drier air could disperse the harmful odors.

Meanwhile, firefighters tried to understand what was burning.

The fire was first seen by someone who was driving by and noticed that the smoke coming from the building was thicker than normal. The fire had broken out in a rear portion of the building, where many of the harmful chemicals are stored, LeClair said.

So, firefighters needed to know what was burning before they could do anything.

“It creates a very nervous atmosphere,” said LeClair, who ordered five firefighting units to the scene with four pumpers and a ladder truck.

For more than an hour, though, they were forced to do nothing.

Staffers from Philips Elmet spent the time using air analysis equipment to examine the smoke and rule out the most harmful toxins. Meanwhile, LeClair and his crew tried shutting down the power in the affected building without turning off exhaust fans.

When they finally moved into the structure sometime after 7:30 p.m., they discovered that most of the burning material was made of plastic, similar to the kind used in polyvinyl chloride pipes.

At the same time, public works crews were working with police to block the roads. Assistant City Administrator Phil Nadeau lent a hand directing traffic onto detours. Meanwhile, City Administrator James Bennett joined police and fire officials in the creation of a command center on the other side of the plant.

They were about to widen the evacuation zone at 8 p.m. when LeClair announced, “The fire’s out.”

At about 8:30 p.m., evacuees were allowed to return to their homes and Lisbon Road was reopened.

dhartill@sunjournal.com