Burnside works clean-up after fire

Press, 15 September 1986, Page 3

Burnside works clean-up after fire

PA Dunedin Staff at Waitaki International’s Bumside freezing works will spend today scrubbing walls and moving thousands of cartons of damaged stock after Saturday morning’s blaze.

At the height of the fire, which caused hundreds of thousands of dollars damage, 50 men from all of Dunedin’s fulltime fire stations battled the flames.

The alarm was raised about 7 a.m. but it took until midday to quell the fire. It started in an area where stockinette and polythene bags were stored, on the top storey of a building in the centre of the works. Meanwhile, volunteer firemen from outlying stations round Dunedin were on alert to deal with any other emergencies.

Firemen had to cut through the roof of the building to get to the deep-seated blaze. All the time they were battling dense, acrid smoke which blackened their helmets and left a sticky black film on the face plates of their breathing apparatus.

Two firemen were taken to Dunedin Hospital during the fire. One was treated for heat exhaustion and the other for a cut hand. Both were later discharged. The manager of the plant, Mr Colin Gough, said two exterior walls of the building which was on fire had been pulled down because they were a hazard, but the inside of the building did not suffer too badly.

“The interior is relatively good. It will need a good clean up by as many employees as possible but we should be back to normal by tomorrow,” Mr Gough said.