SPS Technologies fire: Shelter-in-place and evacuation orders lifted

Parts of the fire-ravaged brick SPS Technologies campus that has held down a stretch of Highland Avenue in Abington Township for over a century will be demolished, officials said Wednesday. Once they can get it to stop burning, that is.

A four-alarm fire that overtook the aerospace parts manufacturer around 9:30 p.m. Monday, and picked up in intensity Tuesday, still was not “officially suppressed” as of late Wednesday morning, Abington Police Chief Patrick Molloy said a news conference, but evacuation and shelter-in-place orders were lifted. SEPTA had also resumed normal service on the West Trenton, Lansdale-Doylestown, and Warminster Regional Rail lines.

Yet surveying the damage from the blaze that drew firefighters from 68 companies and closed schools over air quality and water contamination concerns could take weeks, said Abington Fire Marshal Chris Platz, given the sheer enormity of SPS Technologies’ 600,000-square-foot campus and the wear-and-tear on the 104-year-old property.

The planned partial demolition of the fire-ravaged century-old SPS Technologies flagship factory in Abington would leave a hole in U.S. design and production of the specialized nuts and bolts, rivets, and other fasteners that pilots and passengers rely on to hold airliners, planes, helicopters and other vehicles together, and make them repairable.

They may look like the cheap metal nuts, bolts, washers and slots that you buy retail at the hardware store.

But SPS and its rivals design and make parts to work under years of heavy use and tough conditions, to prevent catastrophic failure.

The fire at SPS Technologies did not expose Philadelphia residents to chemicals or toxic air, the city said Wednesday.

Air samples from near the area of the fire tested by the city health department's Air Management Services division did not show any toxic compounds present in threatening levels. Likewise, water samples from creeks leading to the Delaware River collected by the Philadelphia Water Department have not raised concerns for inspectors, the city said.

Testing, however, will continue for up to 48 hours. Sample results are being shared with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

Not long after hearing explosion sounds coming from the SPS Technologies fire on Monday evening, Glenside resident Lisa Jester gathered her dog and some belongings and fled for a hotel.

The Lutheran pastor — who said she has a respiratory illness — had no other choice if she wanted to avoid the possibility of inhaling potentially harmful smoke.

“Any smoke could be dangerous to me,” said Jester, who resides in a neighborhood adjacent to the factory.

When Brontë Serensits returned from a business trip to Pittsburgh Tuesday night, Jenkintown police told her that she wouldn’t be able to access her home inside the township’s shelter-in-place zone. Her husband, their three and one-year-old daughters, and their dogs — a Husky named Gus and a Boxer mix named Milli — had already evacuated to Allentown after smoke from the SPS Technologies fire began to waft into their house Sunday night.

“My daughter kept saying the house was stinky,” said Serensits, 30, who moved to Jenkintown in August 2023. “I was concerned about how to get my things and how to get to my family.”

Serensits was able to rendezvous with her family in Allentown, where they have remained since Tuesday night. Her daughters are coughing more than usual, Serensits said, and her husband can’t stop talking about the charred black debris that covered their front lawn when he left Tuesday morning.

Though officials have held multiple press conferences regarding Monday night’s large fire at SPS Technologies fire, they’ve been short on specifics so far about what chemicals might have burned if any.

However, those officials said during a Wednesday morning update that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will be hosting a webpage with more specifics. They gave no timeframe for that and a DEP spokesperson could not be reached immediately for comment.

Both the U.S. The Environmental Protection Agency and DEP have been at the site in Abington, Montgomery County, but no representatives from those agencies have yet spoken.

When officials announced that the evacuation and shelter-in-place orders for the area surrounding the SPS Technologies facility would be lifted at 11 a.m. Wednesday, Leo Greenberry was at work in the same jeans and sweater he left home with on Monday night.

“I’m tired,” Greenberry, 34, who has lived about a fifth of a mile away from the facility in Abington since 2017. “And I don’t have any clothes.”

Greenberry was packing lunches for his four-year-old and one-year-old sons to take to daycare when he heard a series of large explosions that shook the house. Then, Greenberry said, the air started to smell “like burning plastic.”

Quiet — save for the faint buzz of an overhead helicopter — fell upon a sleepy Glenside neighborhood located next to SPS Technologies around 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

That was the time Abington officials declared voluntary evacuation and shelter-in-place orders due to the factory blaze would cease, and residents could return to their homes.

But traffic on the residential roads was non-existent, and it was unclear if, or when, neighbors would be rushing to return.

Township officials gathered at 10 a.m. Wednesday morning to provide updates on the fire.

The area's evacuation and shelter-in-place orders will both be lifted at 11 a.m.

Drinking water supplies are not at risk and the air quality remains safe.

Abington Township officials are calling Monday night's fire at SPS Technologies a "disaster emergency."

The official declaration, which was signed by the township's board president Thomas Hecker on Tuesday, will allow the area to receive federal and government resources and relief.

On Tuesday, Red Cross was already on the scene assisting with shelters for those impacted by the evacuation zone.

Abington Township said in an update at 8 p.m. Tuesday that the fire at SPS Technologies “remains active and investigations are ongoing.”

Residents and others in a one-mile radius are asked to continue sheltering in place.

Testing continues for air quality changes. Officials also are monitoring water runoff.

A shelter-in-place order for residents within a one-mile radius of SPS Technologies’ property remains in effect Wednesday morning.

The order is due to concerns over air quality and water contamination.

The shelter-in-place zone is home to about 17,300 residents, according to an Inquirer analysis of Census Bureau population data.

A voluntary evacuation recommendation remains in effect for residents and businesses in the immediate area of SPS Technologies.

Nearly 700 people live in the evacuation zone, according to Census data. Officials said that about 247 homes are located inside the area, and that the evacuation notice was issued out an abundance of caution as fire crews continued to work to extinguish the blaze.

People located in the following areas have been asked to voluntarily evacuate:

Police received multiple 911 calls of an explosion at SPS Technologies starting shortly after 9:30 p.m. Monday. First responders arrived to multiple explosions at the complex, and ultimately, firefighters from 68 fire companies responded to the four-alarm blaze, Abington Police Chief Patrick Molloy said.

No injuries have been reported. Officials have not yet said what may have started the fire, or where in the complex it originated.

Tom McAneney, Abington’s director of fire and emergency management services, said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference that the sprinkler system at SPS Technologies was out of service “due to maintenance issues,” but the company had a fire watch in place and a fire brigade on site. He said the company had notified the township about the sprinkler system.