A blaze with chemical explosions proved a challenge for firefighters in Murrumbateman over the weekend.
A shed at the intersection of Merryville Drive and Barley Place was destroyed by a fire on Saturday night, with fire services working for nearly six hours to contain and eventually put out the blaze.
“We got paged at 4:57 pm and we left the scene at half past 10,” said Captain of the Murrumbateman Rural Fire Services Richard Alley.
The shed was a private car workshop and contained associated chemicals, which fueled the blaze and made it a hazardous proposition for the first responders.
“When we initially got there, it was progressing well, still inside the whole entire spray booth itself, but once it broke out of that spray booth, things went nasty really quick, and once it got hold of the diesel and all the chemicals stored in the shed, the fire behaviour became very vigorous, very quickly.”
“We had to pull out because there were explosions going off inside the shed, and we could hear jerry cans and paint tins going off, and we had to for safety reasons pull back a bit and protect anything outside the shed so that it wouldn’t progress any further,” said Richard.
The aim, therefore, was to contain the fire to the shed. Once they were confident that had been achieved, the next step was to complete the delicate process of putting out the fire in the shed.
“Once we had Fire & Rescue go in and gain access to the shed because there was only one side with roller doors you couldn’t access anything,”
“They had to cut holes inside the shed, and you can’t go in the building because the roof will fall on you; it was too dangerous to enter,” said Richard.
Fortunately, no injuries resulted from the fire; however, the blaze destroyed everything in the shed.
Max O’Driscoll