Whitfield County firefighters knew they were dealing with hazardous chemicals when they were called to this factory, they just didn't know how hazardous.
Chief Carl Collins said, "The initial call we got said we couldn't put water on it. They tried some extinguishers and it would put the fire out as soon as they ran out of extinguishers it would come back.
They had to shut down South Dixie Highway and Cooperate Drive and evacuated homes and businesses.
The Pedigo Kids say their schools were also affected by the scare.
All of a sudden we hear an announcement come on it's talking about a chemical fire and I'm like, how serious is this you know I'm kind of worried," said Emily Pedigo.
Valley Point Elementary student Matthew Pedigo said, "The teacher came onto the bus and said that we need to evacuate and this is a drill and then everybody started screaming and trying to get off the bus and then they were telling us not to run inside but obviously people were running inside."
They say because they didn't know if it was really serious or not, it caused some panic.
"Some of the teachers were running down the hallways just screaming get inside, stay in the classroom," Emily said.
Matthew said, "There was people crying and all kinds of stuff on our bus."
After a couple of hours firefighters got the blaze under control.
Chief Collins said the chemicals were not as hazardous as they were concerned about.
All the children made it home safely.. just a little late.
