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On Sunday 3rd December
2006 during preparations for a
fireworks display, fire broke out at
Marlie Farm as a result of a freak accident. A call
was promptly
made to
the Fire Brigade at which point the Winter family and employees of the
company
closed the road to form a cordon to protect members of the
public. When
the Fire Brigade arrived family members and employees advised the
Brigade to
direct their hoses towards an inert storage shed to prevent the
further
spread of the fire but it was discovered that the Brigade had arrived
with
precious little water (around half a tender's worth) along with no
knowledge of
the nature of the site. This was in spite of previous risk
assessment visits conducted by the Fire Brigade, the last one taking
place in
2003. This should have alerted them to the fact that hazardous
materials
were stored on the site and it was also stated during the call to the
Fire
Brigade that it was a blaze at a Firework Factory.
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During
the incident the following problems and errors occurred: The site
was licensed by Health and Safety
Executive and Trading Standards to hold a considerable amount of
fireworks .
The Fire Brigade assist the Trading Standards in issuing
licences,
therefore the Fire Brigade were well aware of the risks involved in
this site.
In 2005 Manufacturer and Storage of Explosives regulations of
2005, of
which a copy was issued to the Fire Brigade containing fire fighting
guidelines
and procedures in the event of fires involving or leading to
explosives.
In court the chief fire officer admitted that he had received it
but had
taken no action other than placing it on his bookshelf. The
information
provided in the regulations should have been passed on to firefighters
to be
used in such an incident, but sadly it was not adhered to. East
Sussex is considered to
have the largest concentration of explosive stores in the country so
therefore
these procedures, including information being available to firefighters
via on
board computers in their cabs, should have been readily available. The
Fire
Brigade
ignored
their
own
guidelines
of a 600 meter cordon being placed around the site. Lack
of
training
in
terms
of
how to combat
a fire involving fireworks The
Fire
Brigade
ignored
advice
from
the on-site
experts The
Police
arrested
Nathan
as
he
was
trying to evacuate the site due to the increasing risk Martin
drew
a
site
plan
highlighting
the
most high risk areas on site only to be ignored and then to have a
policeman
spit in his face Stuart
Winter
also
highlighted
to
a
fire
officer the possibility of a container exploding which could
cause loss of
life only to be told by the firemen that they were the professionals
and knew
what they were doing A
fireman telephoned his family inviting
them to come and attend the "free fireworks display" Members
of the public were in a nearby Inn
and they were allowed to
approach the site for a closer look and were subsequently injured due
to the
lack of a cordon that should have been set up by the Emergency Services Martin
asked
the
Brigade
if
he
in person
could open the doors to the storage shed so that they could soak the
inert
materials to stop the spread of fire, but was refused The
Brigade
instead
directed
water
on
to
the pitched tin roof of the shed at which point they ran out of water
after
around 30 seconds of spasmodic spraying The
Brigade
claimed
to
know
the
location
of the hydrant but then had to be shown by a member of the public
where it
was located An
hour after the arrival of the Fire
Brigade, a metal container that had been partly loaded that morning to
be
shipped to Oman exploded causing the death of one retained
Fireman and
one Fire Support/Media/civilian - there were conflicting accounts by
the Fire
Brigade during the court case as to the content of this container, in
spite of
being told by the only experts on the site (the Winters) that the
contents
posed a serious threat of explosion. Please click onto Page 2 for more information on the accident and its similarities to other incidents. |
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