3-alarm commercial fire in Conroe

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Firefighters from several area departments including Conroe,

The Woodlands and north and south Montgomery County responded to the huge fire and explosion at the Drill Chem Company at 4301 South Loop 336 East.

Company officials told firefighters the last employee left at 4 o'clock.

"When we arrived the gates were actually closed and locked," said Conroe Fire Marshall Mike Legoudes. "All indications no one was inside."

Heavy black smoke could be seen for miles.

The impact of the blast even shattered a few nearby windows. A shelter in place was ordered within a two mile radius because of the burning chemicals.

"We haven't found anything concerning on the haz mat monitoring at this point it's purely precautionary," Legoudes said.

The shelter in place was lifted by 8 pm Friday night. At least one if not both of the buildings at the plant were totally destroyed.

Luckily there were no reports of any injuries including the firefighters battling the blaze. Now the task at hand is determining the cause of the huge fire and explosion.

Previous Updates:

UPDATE:  The Conroe Fire department has the fire under control. Shelter in place has been lifted.  Loop 336 road closures are beginning to be removed.

No injuries reported. Th employees had left the facility around 4pm today, the fire started about 45 minutes later.. HAZMAT has not found any hazardous chemicals in the air.

At around 4:45 this afternoon the Conroe fire department was called to the scene of a large 3 alarm commercial fire burning at the DrillChem warehouse. Thick clouds of black smoke rose from the site and drifted to the west.  Located at 4301 South Loop 336 East the fire caused both east and westbound lanes of the Loop to be closed.

A shelter in place has been issued for residents within a 2-mile radius of the plant.

There are no reports of any injuries at this time.

This story is developing and will be updated accordingly.