Are We Starting to Notice the Impacts of ‘Small’ Industrial Fires?

The fire at an industrial building on 15 April in Sutton Bonington, Nottinghamshire required 13 crews from three counties to bring under control. The blaze involved large quantities of industrial waste alongside buildings, timber and trailers. Firefighting operations didn’t conclude until ten days after the fire was first reported.

The Environment Agency has since launched an investigation, with part of its inquiry focused on whether the fire occurred on the estate itself or on land adjacent to it. It was the second fire in the area in eight years and the local MP has reported residents’ concerns over air quality, contamination and whether their health was being adequately protected.

Two weeks later, on 29 April, a fire broke out at a small industrial building in Bradford that handles rubber. The building itself was unremarkable in scale, but the firefighting response wasn’t. No fewer than 15 fire crews from across West Yorkshire attended with aerial support, while local residents were urged to keep doors and windows closed. The smoke plume was reported as far away as Brighouse. A neighbouring chemical plant temporarily halted operations so that crews could use its land to fight the fire.

Even the more recent fire at a recycling facility in Widnes on 23 June illustrates the point. The collection of products on-site was in the hundreds of tonnes, but the building itself was again unremarkable in scale. A total of 25 fire engines from Chesire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, North Wales and Merseyside attended the scene to contain the blaze.

Environmental footprint

When compared to fires in recent years, these were not large fires, but that’s precisely the point. A fire doesn’t need to consume a vast logistics centre to become a major incident. Fires starting in yards, in waste facilities, on adjacent land or in small ancillary buildings are increasingly tying up regional firefighting resources for days at a time, while their environmental footprint extends far beyond the site boundary.

Every such incident sends combustion products from plastics, rubber and mixed waste over nearby homes. Every hour of firefighting consumes vast quantities of water, with run-off carrying contaminants towards watercourses and land.

Further, every protracted incident leaves behind questions about air quality, monitoring and clean-up that communities are left to live with long after the crews depart. As the Environment Agency stated in relation to the Sutton Bonington fire, communities shouldn’t have to tolerate pollution.

According to the most recent fire statistics for England, industrial premises were the setting for 19,766 primary fires over the period 2014-2015 to 2023-2024, resulting in 1,071 casualties and 23 fatalities. Behind the headline figures sits a steady drumbeat of smaller incidents whose cumulative cost – in relation to firefighting resources, business disruption and environmental harm – rarely makes the national news.

Containing a fire at its earliest stage remains the best way in which to limit damage, protect the environment and minimise costs. Fire sprinkler systems have been proven to contain, control or extinguish fires in 99% of cases when caused to operate. A fire stopped in minutes doesn’t burn for ten days, doesn’t blanket a town in smoke and doesn’t generate thousands of litres of contaminated run-off.

Rethink required

What these incidents continue to show is that the Fire and Rescue Services’ ability to intervene in such industrial fires is challenged and the notion of a small industrial fire needs a rethink.

A fire involving a single building or a yard of stored materials can still demand crews from three counties, close roads, halt neighbouring businesses and leave communities worrying about the air they breathe. If incidents on this scale can flow from such modest beginnings, we should be deeply concerned about the far larger storage and distribution buildings being constructed across the country without sprinkler protection.

The pattern is a familiar one. Sites holding combustible materials such as waste, timber, rubber or plastics often lack the fire suppression and site management measures that would stop an ignition becoming an incident. By contrast, fires in sprinkler-protected buildings tend to be contained or extinguished before they can escalate, limiting damage, preserving business continuity and sparing fire crews as well as the environment.

Fire protection is environmental protection. As the ten-day operation at Sutton Bonington and the smoke over Bradford both demonstrate, the cost of a fire is never confined to the building in which it starts. It’s measured in the air above our towns, the water in our rivers and the weeks of disruption that follow.

Investing in proven fire protection is the surest way in which to keep that cost from being paid at all.

Tom Roche is Secretary of the Business Sprinkler Alliance (www.business-sprinkler-alliance.org)