UK Fire Crews Resume Fighting Oil Depot Blaze
Date: 13-Dec-05
Country: UK
Author: Dylan Martinez
The firefighters sprayed foam combined with 32,000 litres of water per minute to tackle the giant fire, which broke out shortly before dawn on Sunday as a wave of explosions ripped through the depot at Hemel Hempstead, injuring 43 people.
Police said the blasts, which blew out windows and doors from nearby houses, appeared to be an accident.
Firefighters said they had extinguished 12 of the 20 storage tanks ablaze at the depot before halting their work over concerns one tank may contain a highly volatile fuel which could set off further explosions.
Crews resumed their work after aerial pictures showed which parts of the site were safe to enter. The fuel in the suspect tank was later identified as a type of aviation fuel called AVTUR.
"Fire crews have now resumed cooling and controlling on site," a fire brigade spokeswoman said. "This is likely to continue overnight."
Police were preparing to reopen England's nearby main north-south motorway, the M1, which was closed because of fears of more blasts.
The area immediately around the Buncefield depot was a charred wasteland of burned out cars, shattered trees and scorched grass as a result of the blasts.
A huge plume of thick, black smoke rose higher than 10,000 feet as it drifted southwest.
But contrary to initial fears, there was no indication it was either highly toxic or coming back down to earth.
"At the moment it appears to be mostly particulates (soot)," said Michael Clarke of the independent Health Protection Agency. "We have no reports so far of elevated levels at ground level," he told Reuters.
FEARS OF ATTACK
The blasts, heard up to 100 miles (160 km) away, had initially raised fears of a possible repeat of the deadly wave of suicide bombings in London in July.
Firefighters spent Sunday night discussing with environmental authorities how to tackle the blaze with fire-quenching foam without polluting local water supplies.
"This is the largest fire of this kind we in the UK or Europe have dealt with," chief fire officer Wilsher said. "We are in uncharted territory."
British newspapers cleared their front pages on Monday for dozens of pictures of the fire under headlines such as "Vision of Doomsday", "Cloud of Doom" and "Black Sunday".
The depot supplies petrol and fuel oils to a large part of southeast England, including Luton and Heathrow airports.
A government spokesman said that when full, the depot holds 5 percent of Britain's oil supply, but could not say how much it was holding before the blast.
Officials said the explosions were unlikely to cause fuel shortages and urged motorists to avoid panic-buying of petrol.
The depot, the fifth largest in Britain, is jointly run by oil companies Total and Texaco. There was no initial estimate of the cost of the blaze.
Britain's worst oil fire disaster was the 1988 blaze aboard the North Sea Piper Alpha rig in which 167 workers died.
(Additional reporting by Peter Griffiths)