Fire warehouse to be demolished

Fire crews have been at the site in Jameson Road, Fleetwood for more than three weeks dealing with the incident involving bales of plastic.

Wyre Council has now taken over responsibility for the site and will continue to work with Lancashire Fire and Rescue to minimise the environmental impact of the major incident.

A spokesman said: “The plastics waste fire has responded to the tactics of controlled burning and the remains of the building containing the material is to be demolished.

“During the demolition firefighters will work alongside the contractors to extinguish remaining pockets of fire as they become accessible.”

The fire has been allowed to burn in a controlled fashion to minimise the danger of contaminated water entering the river Wyre.

This strategy will continue with machinery being used to help access areas that continue to burn, a process which can continue once the building has come down.

A Wyre Council spokesman said: “Throughout the incident the issue has been that excessive amounts of water jetted onto the fire would be ineffective because the layers of plastic shed the water off, unless they are dug into and turned over by machinery to expose more pockets of fire to be extinguished.

“Though some of that process of ‘raking’ the embers has taken place – using mechanical diggers – whenever it is done the smoke plume immediately increases and additionally, the building is unsafe and the final phase of extinguishing the fire can only occur once the building is down.”