Full extent of Smethwick recycling plant blaze revealed
Enough water to fill six Olympic swimming pools, hundreds of 999 calls and thousands of man hours – the full extent of the biggest blaze ever to hit the West Midlands was today unveiled.
The fire at the Jayplas Recycling Plant in Smethwick took 14 million litres of water to put out, emitted 19,000 tonnes of CO2, and resulted in 429 emergency 999 calls to the fire service.
These statistics have been revealed by West Midlands Fire Service to demonstrate all the resources that were ploughed in to this one blaze.
A video made by the fire service to reveal the true extent of the blaze revealed that the service received its first 999 call at 11.05pm on June 30, and by 11.09pm the first fire engine was on scene. Just 22 minutes later the call went on for 15 more engines to attend, and by 11.50pm fire service bosses realised they needed to more than double the number of firefighters and engines.
Watch the video here
The fire service received three times their daily average of 999 calls for this one blaze, as terrified residents tried to inform the service of the inferno which they feared could spread to their homes and businesses.
The blaze was started by a lone Chinese sky lantern landing on the site. More than 100,000 bales of plastic went up in flames and sent plumes of acrid black smoke billowing 6,000ft into the air.
West Midlands Fire Service called for help from neighbouring fire services and in addition to their 29 fire engines, they had seven from Staffordshire and three from Hereford and Worcester fire service.
A high volume pumping unit, along with three aerial appliances, an incident unit, environment unit and welfare unit were also sent to the Dartmouth Road blaze.
The fire crews focussed on protecting neighbouring buildings from destruction, and stopping the fire from spreading. More than 200 firefighters were involved at the height of the blaze and overall it took up 6,000 firefighter hours – pushing the service's resources to its limit.
At one point there was only one fire engine left to deal with any fires elsewhere in the region.
To tackle the blaze they used enough water to fill 300,000 baths or the same amount of water 24 UK residents would consume in their lifetime.
The amount of CO2 produced was equivalent to the same amount used to fly to New York and back every weekend for 339 years.
The smoke could be seen up to 40 miles away and the fire burned for days. The video highlights the blaze made headlines around the world with articles appearing not only in the national newspapers and TV news in the UK, but the story made it into Germany's Süddeutsche Zeitung and America's The Wall Street Journal and the Sacramento Sun.
West Midlands Fire Service gained 500 new Twitter followers in just 24 hours following the fire, as news of the blaze spread.
Chairman of West Midlands Fire Service Authority, and Sandwell Councillor ohn Edwards said: "The aim of the video was to make people aware of the hidden cost of the fire.
"We know about the £6 million economic cost, but maybe people aren't aware of the environmental costs of a blaze of that size."
He added: "It was one of the biggest reported fires in our history, and made the news across the world.
"It was all over social media so we wanted to use the video to get the message out there, and I think it does it successfully."
