UK – RRT assists the emergency crews with the Stafford fire at Global Hygiene on March 2, 2016
The Stafford RRT were called when a large fire at an industrial cleaning company caused explosions and sent fireballs into the air over Stafford.
Witnesses described seeing barrels of oil being launched into the air as the blaze tore through Global Hygiene, on Astonfields Industrial Estate. The company said the blaze broke out in a building that was under construction.
Nearby schools were closed, and hundreds of residents and business owners evacuated whilst fire crews battled to stop the fire spreading to 40,000 litres of industrial oil located nearby. Eighty firefighters tackled the blaze at its height and some crews remained at the scene throughout the night.
A couple of RRT volunteers working locally saw the blaze and were on site within 15 minutes. On receiving approval from the Incident Commander, the RRT welfare unit was set up within 60 minutes. Throughout the day the RRT team were busy serving around 250 personnel from the various emergency service crews attending the incident.
By the end of the day the RRT had served over 540 slices of pizza, 220 cans of coke, 500 hot drinks, 20 boxes of chips, 200 cookies and 150 bottles of water! These refreshments were served to the Fire Service, The Ambulance Team, Police Force, National Grid, Gas and many neighbours who had been evacuated from their homes.
The incident commander sent the following message to RRT: ‘You and your team took a great deal of pressure off me as incident commander by ensuring all responders welfare was taken care of. Please would you pass on my thanks to all associated with this incident? It is at incidents such as this that we really see the community spirit pulling together.’
Thankfully there was only one casualty with minor burns although others in the vicinity suffered adverse effects from the dense smoke and fumes.
RRT were glad to once again offer their support to the community and the emergency services.
