Major fire at a chemical factory in Deer Park near Melbourne’s west

ABC NEWS (Australia)

There has been another factory fire in Melbourne. For the second time this month, smoke has billowed over Melbourne’s western suburbs. The blaze, in Deer Park, closed a major road and prompted warnings for motorists to keep their windows closed.

Transcript

00:00Firefighters worked to put out flames from above.

00:06Emergency services were alerted to the blaze in Deer Park in Melbourne's west by an alarm

00:11just before 7.30am.

00:13Busy Ballarat Road was closed inbound, as dozens of firefighters fought the fire in

00:19blustery conditions.

00:22Five people were evacuated from a nearby building.

00:25None were injured.

00:26The site is quite large, it's many acres in size, it has multiple different tenancies

00:32and the one that the fire was in, there was no one working in that at that time, it was

00:36a neighbouring factory to the actual premise.

00:39The fire broke out in a warehouse containing plastic shipping pallets.

00:44Firefighters prevented the blaze spreading to other structures, taking around 90 minutes

00:49to bring it under control.

00:51Any smoke is dangerous, so the PVC smoke is in that initial form, though to the external

00:57community it's not a threat now and certainly not now because FRV crews have performed so

01:03well at extinguishing that fire.

01:05This fire comes just ten days after a major blaze in nearby Derrimut.

01:10Investigations are continuing into the cause of that fire as the EPA monitors local waterways.

01:17While not as severe as the Derrimut blaze, authorities acknowledge the concern these

01:21incidents can cause.

01:22Because it impacts obviously our community, obviously our fire-fighting personnel as well,

01:27our organisation as well as stretch the limits when we have these large-scale incidents.

01:32That's what we're trained for and that's why we have the resources that we do.

01:36The cause of today's fire is yet to be determined, as investigators sift through the debris.

01:41But it's not been deemed suspicious.

01:46For more UN videos visit www.un.org

Category

Transcript

Recommended