Toxic smoke spills over Melbourne as firefighters battle factory fire
Residents are being warned about toxic smoke spewing from an out-of-control factory fire in Melbourne’s west as 140 firefighters battle to contain the blaze.
“We want to try and knock this down by 4 o’clock this afternoon before the weather changes,” Melbourne Fire Brigade incident controller Ken Brown said ahead of forecast rain on Thursday afternoon.
“We’ll be here overnight fully extinguishing this fire till tomorrow.”
According to Mr Brown, the rain will not be strong enough to bring down the plume.
The Melbourne fire broke out at a factory on Somerville Road, West Footscray just after 5am on Thursday morning. Explosions have been heard coming from the Tottenham building, with witnesses describing sounds like ‘rolling thunder’.
“We’ve managed to contain the perimeter fire,” Mr Brown said.
At this stage, fire crews are focusing on attacking the fire from above instead of from the ground.
The toxic smoke may impact areas within a 2km radius of the scene, MFB said in a statement.
Several schools have been closed, and a watch and act alert has been issued for suburbs including Footscray, West Footscray, Yarraville, Kingsville, South Kingsville, and Sunshine because of smoke concerns.
Melbourne Fire Brigade says the fire is spilling out toxic fumes across the city. Source: 7News“At this stage, the MFB is concerned about unknown chemicals inside the building and is concerned about “aerosol containers” which may pop, said Mr Brown.“When crews first arrived, we had no understanding of what was in the building so we’ve spoken to the owner and the occupier and we believe there is some acetone and some oxy-acetylene,” incident controller Ken Brown told reporters near the scene.
“There’s been some other explosions that we’ve had. We’ve had some 44 gallon drums explode and fly through the air, which is a concern for our firefighters.
“Oxy-acetylene is welding equipment and acetone, the best way to describe it is nail polish remover.”
People in the nearby areas are urged to close their windows and doors, turn off their air-conditioning systems and bring their pets inside.
One worker at a nearby business said he heard “a lot of explosive noises” coming from the warehouse.
“It’s definitely pretty severe,” Dion Amato from Leading Car Care Centre told AAP.
Another worker at a second business said she could see “a lot of black smoke” while a third said it sounded “like something is blowing up”.
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“We’ve had no reports of injuries and we’re really making sure we focus on firefighters’ welfare,” Mr Brown said.
Environment Protection Agency are at the scene assisting MFB in monitoring the atmosphere.
-With AAP
