The incident at AWS's former RAF hanger site at Hemswell Cliff has affected mostly industrial buildings used for the storage of recyclable plastics and “other individual uses”.
Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Services attended the site shortly after 15.11 yesterday with 17 appliances including a hydraulic platform. One main jet had been used to protect around 50 containers of LPG (light petroleum gas) near the fire.
The industrial estate was evacuated at 15.17 and, as of 04.00 this morning, damping down of the site was still on-going. Five fire crews and a command support unit are still on site.
Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Services said that the crews were using two main jets and that “good progress” was being made. Residents have been urged to keep their windows closed due to the a large plume of black smoke emanating from the site.
At this time, the cause of the fire is still undetermined.
David Brocklesby of Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Services told letsrecycle.com: “We have got two fire investigation teams on site at the moment and the Health and Safety Executive have been in touch but we have not been in the building yet or interviewed employees or the owners of the site.”
AWS, which has headquarters in Newcastle, earlier this month (August 4) passed a test to allow it to produce food-contact plastic packaging from recycled plastic bottles at the Hemswell plant (see letsrecycle.com story).
The company is currently spending £14 million in expanding the Hemswell facility to extend its capacity to 100,000 tonnes of plastic bottles each year in a bid to make it the largest plastic bottle recycling facility in Europe.
Nobody at AWS was available for comment at the time of publication.
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