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27/02/2012
Severe Blaze At Essex Power Station
The Tilbury Power Station in the Thames valley has been engulfed by a ‘severe’ blaze since 08:00 this morning. Around 100 fire fighters are tackling the blaze in the pellet fuel handling area.
RWE npower, which owns the plant, said: "A fire broke out at 07:45 GMT in a fuel storage area at the station. All our employees have been accounted for."
Originally built to burn coal Tilbury Power Station was recently granted consent to burn biomass and wood materials.
Biomass is generally made up of wood pellets, made from compacted sawdust or other waste material.
Essex chief fire officer David Johnson has said they currently don’t know what caused the fire.
"The fire is in the main part of the power station,” he said, “where there are numerous storage cells which hold the bio-fuel, which is basically compressed and crushed wood fibre. Two of those at least are on fire, which is about 4,000 tonnes of fuel.
The difficulty we have at the moment is access, because it's very high up in the structure and there is the probability of some structural deformity and damage."
Fighting the fire are 15 engines, three aerial ladder platforms and a mass foam attack unit.
"We would hope that the fire can be brought under control hopefully within a matter of hours,” continued Johnson, "it shouldn't cause too much problems to people nearby."
Extra crews from London and further afeild have been called to tackle a separate unrelated fire in a woodpile on a nearby dockside.
(H)
RWE npower, which owns the plant, said: "A fire broke out at 07:45 GMT in a fuel storage area at the station. All our employees have been accounted for."
Originally built to burn coal Tilbury Power Station was recently granted consent to burn biomass and wood materials.
Biomass is generally made up of wood pellets, made from compacted sawdust or other waste material.
Essex chief fire officer David Johnson has said they currently don’t know what caused the fire.
"The fire is in the main part of the power station,” he said, “where there are numerous storage cells which hold the bio-fuel, which is basically compressed and crushed wood fibre. Two of those at least are on fire, which is about 4,000 tonnes of fuel.
The difficulty we have at the moment is access, because it's very high up in the structure and there is the probability of some structural deformity and damage."
Fighting the fire are 15 engines, three aerial ladder platforms and a mass foam attack unit.
"We would hope that the fire can be brought under control hopefully within a matter of hours,” continued Johnson, "it shouldn't cause too much problems to people nearby."
Extra crews from London and further afeild have been called to tackle a separate unrelated fire in a woodpile on a nearby dockside.
(H)
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