Originally Posted by: firesafety101

Merseyfire made pumps twelve at 0730 hrs and the twelfth pump arrived at 1000hrs.

I understood that Merseyside Fire had been cut, but that is ridiculous. For non fire readers, the above means that the officer in charge of the fire wanted 12 fire appliances and crews to implement a plan s/he had drawn up, but had to wait 2.5 hours for them to arrive. That is an unprecedented delay.

It is about time the Govt pushed through some better regulations to increase fire safety on recycling fires. As FS101 says, serious fires that take up considerable fire service resources are a regular feature and it's not rare to have more than one a month. In what other industry would the Govt put up with this before tightening up legislation?

Water supplies, fixed installations and control of ignition sources need to be better controlled as does automatic detection. Video smoke detectors are ideal for large outdoor areas, but why would I install such a system if I didn't need to? I'd like to see tough conditions imposed on licences and if they are breached, the licence is lost or suspended for a set time. That would sharpen up the industry

There's a serious health risk from smoke and water run off, plus as FS101 says, whilst your local fire service are tied up here, they are no able to protect you or your family

Think another post has already established a lack of EHO enforcement activity thanks to local council cut-backs.

If they aren't capable of executing enforcement the more mundane task of regular inspection of permitted operations stands no chance.

From past experience in the waste industry, treatment plants were always very tightly regulated (e.g. 2/3 visits per week from the enforcing authority, compare that with an average frequency of HSE visits of once in 14 years at the time). Don't know what the situation is now, with cutbacks in council budgets, or if transfer stations and recycling facilities came under the same rigour of inspection.

It is worth bearing in mind that there might be a common cause for such fires, i.e. lithium batteries. These have been implicated in a few fires now, as crushing or otherwise rupturing these can cause a serious fire, and I don't suppose people are too fussy as to how they get rid of spent batteries. I have two defective smoke alarms with ten year batteries, in other words lithium cells, and I haven't a clue how to dispose of these. I guess most people would probably just bin them, perhaps in the recycling bins, thinking they are doing their bit for the environment.