A fire at the Pine Bluff Arsenal early Monday morning destroyed a warehouse that stored about 7,500 containers of a white phosphorous compound used in conventional weapons, officials said Monday.

Security guards reported the fire shortly after midnight and firefighters had the blaze under control by 1 a.m.

The warehouse is in the production area of the installation near the Warbritton Gate. The work is unrelated to the disposal of chemical weapons, which is underway at the arsenal.

"We still don’t have an estimate on the damages," Raini Wright, a spokesman for the arsenal, said Monday.

The arsenal has requested an investigative team from the U.S. Army Materials Agency, she said. It’s not known how long the investigation will take.

The material destroyed was a white phosphorous component used as an incendiary device in ammunition and for smokescreens, Wright said. No one was injured in the blaze, and there was no threat to the community, she said.

At a 4 p.m. news conference, base officials said that firefighters hosed down the area around the fire periodically throughout the night. However, officials said there was little else to do but wait for the white phosphorus to burn itself out, which they expected to happen by early evening.

"We decided to let it burn," said Lt. Col. Searless Hathaway at the news conference.

Hathaway said that white phosphorus was not in any type of round, but was instead stored in containers.

She said smoke from the blaze did not get off post. Smoke from the chemical can irritate the eyes and nose as well as cause sore throats and coughs. A team from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality is accessing whether there could be any potential long-term health effects, but base officials didn’t expect any.