70 firefighters halt blast danger
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| Firefighters at the scene of the Neville Road blaze with jets cooling the wreckage |
Up to 70 firefighters spent this weekend battling to stop a major explosion at an industrial park.
Fire crews from across the city were at the former Hepworth and Grandage engineering works in Neville Road, East Bowling.
Eight fire engines were used to hose down a number of potentially-explosive acetylene cylinders.
Hours after the fire started at 5am yesterday plumes of smoke were still filling the skyline.
Shooting flames had brought down the roof of the 60 metre by 30 metre single storey building, which houses three separate businesses believed to be a reclamation firm, a fibre-glass maker and furniture works.
Other nearby businesses had to be evacuated and remained shut until the scene was given the all-clear this morning.
Incident commander Richard Veti said: "The cylinders are extremely dangerous, this was a major blaze. They could have gone up at any time." Neville Road was shut from its junction with Wakefield Road up to its junction with Lower Lane.
Margaret Crompton, of Thomas Crompton's Waste Management and Demolition, said: "I got a call at about 6am yesterday saying I needed to get down to the site.
"It's worth millions of pounds here with all the machinery and equipment we've got, we didn't want it going up too.
"We've had to keep our gates locked and won't be able to get out all the orders we were due to do. It's costing us money."
"This is the third time in about six months there has been a fire over there. It needs investigating properly, it can't keep happening. We're fed up."
Last September, firefighters battled to stop a fire in a tank containing bitumen from spreading to nearby business units in Neville Road.
The 16,000-litre tank, containing 4,000 litres of chemicals, had caught fire at the engineering works and four fire crews spent three hours at the scene.
When cylinders thought to contain acetylene are found at the scene of a fire, firefighters set up an exclusion zone to allow the cylinders to cool off for at least 24 hours.
The presence of acetylene cylinders, which create a potentially-lethal fireball when they explode, means firemen have to fight such blazes defensively, often from outside the building.
Numerous incidents involving acetylene cylinders have occurred in Bradford in the last year, notably in Florence Street, off Leeds Road, where 60 people had to be evacuated in May last year for fear of an explosion.
Acetylene also hindered firemen last April in their attempts to tackle what was described as the biggest fire in Bradford for ten years - a blaze that destroyed virtually an entire block of buildings facing on to Sunbridge Road, Tetley Street, Grattan Road and Fulton Street.
4:32pm Sunday 9th March 2008
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CommentPosted by: chris, BRADFORD on 4:56pm Sun 9 Mar 08
It will be FIRE BUGS
Posted by: albion, west riding on 3:13pm Mon 10 Mar 08
Well done to our ever reliable fire service.
Well done to our ever reliable fire service.
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