Chullora fire: Massive blaze rips through recycling centre
FIRE crews have turned to the hi-tech solution to help them battle the massive recycling centre fire in Chullora by bringing in a robot to help control the fire which is expected to burn for days.
NSW
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FIREFIGHTERS have turned to a hi-tech solution to help them contain a blaze at the recycling centre in Chullora.
While the fire has been contained by firefighters it could continue to burn for days to come.
Earlier more than 100 firefighters were battling the blaze that took hold of the recycling centre in Sydney’s southwest this morning the service also brought in a robot to help contain the fire.
The fire is likely to smoulder and flare up overnight, burning through plastics, carpet, cardboard and paper, a NSW Fire and Rescue spokesman said.
“We can’t go in there because the roof’s collapsed. It’s too dangerous to go inside,” he said.
With earlier fears LPG cylinders could explode and with part of the roof already collapsed sending in the robot provides a low risk alternative to sending firefighters into the building.
CHULLORA | UPDATE: #FRNSW f/fighters continue to battle blaze at waste recycling centre. pic.twitter.com/5C59NfAxfN
— Fire & Rescue NSW (@FRNSW) February 23, 2017
Fire crews were called to the Suez Resource Recovery Park on Muir Rd about 9.20am this morning to find the facility fully engulfed in flames.
All staff have been accounted for and the fire is believed to be in the paper and plastic section of the recovery centre facility.
Superintendent Ian Krimmer from Fire and Rescue NSW said there were fears for some LP gas cylinders which were located on the site.
“It is a large factory complex used for recycling material, it is full of carpets, plastics and paper, it measures 120m by 70m, so it is quite a large complex,” he said.
He said fire crews were working to cool the cylinders.
“At this stage we have responded around 100 firefighters from 20 surrounding stations. We have a number of ladder trucks at work and hose lines,” he said.
“We have evacuated a number of surrounding residents and factories in this particular complex,” he said.
He said the workers that were inside were all evacuated to safety.
He said crews were stationed around the building and were measuring the toxicity of the smoke.
Meanwhile the NSW EPA has sent officers to the site to monitor the Cooks River which runs past the inferno.
Such was the ferocity of the blaze that massive plumes of smoke could be seen across the city, as far as 25km away.
A Fire and Rescue spokeswoman said the roof of the factory had collapsed under the intense heat, but so far the fire had been contained to the building.
“The westerly wind is taking smoke in an easterly direction and we have notified Bankstown Airport of the smoke hazard,” she said.
“It will take a little while, they are still in defensive mode,” the spokeswoman said. “It will be a protracted incident.”
James Dixon was driving from Menai when he saw a thick plume of smoke.
“I thought ‘that is Bankstown Airport, a small plane must have crashed’, but as I came up past Bankstown I came down and was told it was a recycling factory,” Mr Dixon said.
A construction union representative, who did not want to be named, told the Canterbury Bankstown Express he entered the recovery centre to check on the welfare of his members and found the paper and plastic piles on fire.
An employee said the materials inside the factory meant it would have “gone up in seconds”.
Anzac and Bunker roads have been blocked off to traffic and people are being advised to avoid the area.
“Fire brigades are coming in big numbers from everywhere,” Grant Beckett, who was metres away, told the Daily Telegraph.
Last year a fire broke out in the neighbouring Veolia recycling centre.
Thirty people were evacuated in December last year after a mattress caught alight and spread into the building.
No one was injured in the fire.
CHULLORA | #FRNSW f/fighters at waste recycling centre #fire. Large amount of smoke. Multiple crews on scene. All ppl accounted for.
— Fire & Rescue NSW (@FRNSW) February 22, 2017
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