Two Years After the BioLab Fire, Nearly 4,000 Plaintiffs Are Still Fighting Over What It Cost Them

CONYERS, Ga. Two years after a chemical fire at BioLab sent a massive toxic plume across Rockdale County and parts of metro Atlanta, thousands of people are still trying to establish what the disaster cost them.

A Georgia Public Broadcasting review of state-court records identified 3,827 plaintiffs in Georgia State and Superior Court lawsuits filed through October 1 alleging injuries tied to the September 29, 2024 fire and chemical release.

That number does not include claims filed in magistrate court, meaning the full universe of litigation is larger than the 3,827 plaintiffs counted in those two court systems.

Most of the cases are about alleged injuries — but some involve deaths

The lawsuits seek compensation for a range of alleged harms, including medical expenses, pain and suffering, property losses and other damages plaintiffs attribute to the fire.

GPB’s review also identified at least five deaths that are now the subject of wrongful-death claims.

Those lawsuits allege exposure to chemicals released from the facility caused, accelerated, aggravated or materially contributed to the deaths. Those allegations have not been established by a court.

Most of the plaintiffs identified in GPB’s review live in Rockdale County, although claims have also been filed by people outside the county.

The federal investigation answered how the fire started

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board released its final investigation report in July 2026.

Federal investigators found that a corroded sprinkler component failed, allowing water to come into contact with highly reactive pool-treatment chemicals stored inside the warehouse.

The reaction generated heat, off-gassing and multiple fires, producing a plume that contained chlorine, hydrogen chloride, bromine and other substances.

The CSB said roughly 17,000 people in the surrounding community were evacuated and approximately 90,000 people in the Atlanta metropolitan area were advised to shelter in place.

The board issued seven safety recommendations tied to the incident. As of early October, all seven remained open in the CSB’s tracking system.

The hardest question is what happens years later

For many residents, the biggest unresolved issue is not what happened on September 29, 2024. It is what exposure might mean five, 10 or 20 years later.

That question sits at the center of a separate legal fight over medical monitoring.

Residents in federal class-action litigation have asked for a company-funded program that would monitor people exposed to the plume for illnesses that might not appear until later. BioLab and parent company KIK Consumer Products have argued that Georgia law does not allow that type of relief unless a person already has a physical injury.

The Georgia Supreme Court considered the issue this year but declined to answer the legal question sent to it by the federal court, leaving the dispute unresolved.

New lawsuits are still being filed in federal court

The state-court filings are only part of the legal picture.

Two proposed federal class actions filed in September seek personal-injury damages and medical monitoring for people who say they experienced respiratory, throat, eye, skin and other health problems after the fire.

Those cases also name BioLab’s parent company, KIK Consumer Products, and other corporate entities as defendants. The proposed classes have not yet been certified.

BioLab stopped manufacturing at the Conyers site in 2025. The property was later listed for sale.

A disaster can end before its consequences do

The visible emergency lasted days and weeks: smoke over Interstate 20, evacuation orders, school disruptions, shelter-in-place alerts and air monitoring across the region.

The legal and medical timeline is much longer.

People who say they became sick must prove causation. Defendants can challenge whether a particular illness or loss was actually caused by chemical exposure. Courts must decide which claims can proceed and what forms of relief Georgia law allows.

At the same time, researchers and residents continue asking what chemicals were present in the plume and whether the early monitoring captured everything people may have encountered.

The Georgia inside the story

The BioLab fire is no longer only a story about a chemical plant catching fire.

It has become a story about what happens after a community-scale industrial disaster moves out of the emergency phase and into courts, laboratories, doctors’ offices and family decisions.

The Georgia inside this story is that the smoke cleared long before the consequences could be measured. Two years later, thousands of people are still asking the same fundamental question: what did that morning cost us — and who is responsible for what happens next?