Angry residents have voiced frustrations after days of health warnings and uncertainty following a factory inferno in Melbourne's north.
One resident told a community meeting on Sunday how she fled her home to escape fumes; another reported a "rainbow" of substances flowing down the street after the fire at a factory storing toxic chemical waste.
The inferno erupted at the Bradbury Industrial Services factory in Campbellfield last Friday and sent a huge toxic pall of thick, black smoke across Melbourne's north. It was the eighth factory fire in Melbourne since October last year.
Maureen McCormick.Credit: Luis Ascui
Maureen McCormick told the meeting of about 100 angry residents she was forced to leave after potentially dangerous fumes seeped into her home.
“It doesn’t matter if you shut the windows or not it comes through ventilators and you can’t shut them," she said.
"It made it very hard with the initial smell of the fire. There was nothing we could do to stop the smell ... the only thing I could do was leave and come back later in the afternoon."
Living in Coolaroo, Ms McCormick was also affected by the SKM Recycling plant fire in 2017 and is worried that these fires may permanently damage her health.
"We moved in 45 years ago, they said there was going to be shops and parks across from us and we have this ... there is so much stuff in the air, you have to dust all the time and who knows what's in the dust."
Ms McCormick said the increase in industrial activity around her home had caused house prices to drop, making it nearly impossible for her to leave.
"Where am I going to go? We can't afford to shift," she said.
Ms McCormick demanded more stringent monitoring of waste-storage facilities.
“These places are opening up everywhere ... something has to be done. It needs to be stopped now. We have had it up to our ears.”
Business owner Stephen Munro.Credit: Luis Ascui
Joyce Pillay owns a factory with her husband, Preggy, on the same block as Bradbury Industrial Services. In order to check on their property, they were forced to walk through chemical-filled water.
"My whole body was itchy last night, but then I really don't know what I have inhaled. We walked into the factory and the smell was just terrible," Ms Pillay said.
"We are worried about our health, I'm fine now but you just have to have a lot of faith that nothing is wrong with you."
Business owner Stephen Munro said he saw a green liquid running from the factory into his own premises.
“The liquid flowing through the street - it’s red, green, yellow. Over the days it’s been every colour of the rainbow”.
MFB Deputy Chief Officer David Bruce told the meeting it was possible the substances contained chemicals stored in the factory.
Firefighters on the scene in Campbellfield.Credit: Paul Jeffers
“We will need to do some more analysis to know what it was,” he said.
The Environmental Protection Authority suspended the factory's licence in March and imposed a clean-up notice after it found 450,000 litres of chemicals that should not have been there.
The EPA inspected the factory on Thursday and discovered 300,000 litres of chemicals - well above the legal volume - still there.
One of the workers tasked with removing the excess chemicals from the site told the meeting he had saved a man's life, but lost everything in the blaze.
“The last person in there was getting dragged by me because he wanted to stay and fight but it was too big,” he said.
“I heard shouting saying 'Get out, get out, get out', and this man was standing there asking me to turn on the fire hose. I got him out and a split second later, bang!”
The man was privately contracted by a waste-removal company to reduce the stockpile.
"I’ve lost everything. I still have not spoken to anyone, no one has been in contact with me."
At the meeting on Sunday, Mr Bruce reassured residents it was safe to breathe the air near the still-smouldering factory.
“The information we are getting is that the quality is good ... at the moment we are not using breathing apparatus,” he said.
But residents said they were angry at the lack of air-quality sensors in the western suburbs.
One woman said locals had been advocating for more air-quality information for years.
“This is just further proof of the way the west is dumped on ... it needs a rapid change,” she said.
Business owners also vented frustration, saying they had not been told if it was safe to resume work.
“We all have businesses to run, we all have orders that if we don’t fill, we lose clients,” said the owner of an adjacent factory.
The Campbellfield is almost out as MFB tackles the last hot spots
“We need to know if it’s today or tomorrow, can we take our staff, are we able to operate? Who cares about the income, who cares about the profit margin, this is impacting people’s families. We need to get clearance.”
Mr Bruce said the MFB was still extinguishing hot spots but hoped to leave the site by Sunday night or Monday morning.
Large quantities of toxic waste remain piled in vats at the sight. WorkSafe and the EPA will work to remove the waste once the fire is totally extinguished.
The exact cause of the blaze was still unknown.
Union representatives will meet on Monday with the owners of the factory to discuss workers' compensation.
Australian Workers' Union secretary Ben Davis said they would discuss if any jobs at the factory could be saved after the fire, which injured two workers, one seriously.
The union would also discuss how workers should be compensated, he said.
Twenty of the fifty workers at the factory had migrated on bridging visas, meaning they are not eligible for unemployment benefits if they lose their jobs.
Given the extent of the damage, the entire building is likely to be demolished.
Worker Vignesh Varatharaja, who suffered serious burns in the fire, emerged from an induced coma on Saturday and is being moved out of intensive care.
Mr Varatharaja was pumping a chemical drum when it exploded into flames during the fire.
Mr Davis said a co-worker unsuccessfully tried to use a faulty nearby fire hose to extinguish the flames on Mr Varatharaja's body.
Mr Varatharaja was then rushed to hospital, where he was put in an induced coma.
"According to the organiser who spent the day with him yesterday at hospital and a fair bit of today, he's very badly burned," Mr Davis said late on Saturday afternoon.
"He’s got a long road to recovery."
Mr Varathrarja is a Sri Lankan national, who arrived in Australia on a bridging visa in 2013.
The Migrants Workers Centre has set up a fundraising page to "Help Vignesh", which had raised more than $18,000 towards Mr Varatharaja's medical costs by 9am Sunday.
Authorities have been on high alert since last August when a West Footscray factory, stockpiled with toxic waste, went up in flames and burned for three days.