Lincolnshire Fire & Rescue were called to the Ancaster site near Grantham at around 6.10pm, reporting “fire damage to 100 tonnes of recycled waste bales”.
The fire service tweeted: “On site staff assisted crews in smothering the fire using machinery, crews also used one Hose Reel. Incident left with on site staff.”
Chris Mountain, managing director of Mid UK, told letsrecycle.com that between 10 to 15 tonnes of material were affected in the “flare up” containing mixed plastics, paper, cardboard and mixed source recovered fuel (SRF).
He added the incident lasted “about 15 minutes” and was a result of the larger fire that hit the site in July 2015 (see letsrecycle.com story). Some of the material was being moved around.
Flare Up
Mr Mountain explained: “The fire on site was not a new fire but a flare up of the original heap. The company have spent the last two weeks dividing the larger heap of material into two smaller heaps as advised by Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue, to facilitate processing.
“The company continues to gradually work through the original heap as it was extinguished by smothering the original fire with soil. This has allowed the company to remove all the unburned bales, leaving the balance as broken bales which are being processed separately. The result is the site now has three smaller heaps to work through which is positive progress.”
He added that when material is exposed to oxygen, it can flare up.
“Earlier in the week we encountered a significant pocket of hot embers from the original fire,” he said. “Following our risk management procedures this pocket of embers were damped down with water and isolated in a separate heap. In total about 10 to 15 tonnes of material were involved. This reignited at approximately 6pm on Friday. The flare up was extinguished using water from our own hydrants on site and smothering the flame with soil to reduce the oxygen intake.”
Prevention
Mid UK Recycling has recently expanded its fire prevention measures in light of the incident earlier this year.
The measures include larger concrete fire breaks, fire suppression, water suppression, extra on-site fire marshals and more hydrants.
The company confirmed the area continues to be monitored by its fire marshal team on a rotating 24-hour basis and has not since reignited.
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