Cornwall Fire & Rescue Service Newsdesk

St. Mary's, Isles of Scilly at 23/07/2017 03:20

Agricultural Building Fire

At 0320 this morning a call was received from St. Mary’s on the Isles of Scilly reporting a fire in a farm building near King Edwards Road, both appliances from St. Mary’s were mobilised and were on scene by 0329 hours, a message was received that there was farm building measuring twenty metres by ten metres well alight with oxyacetylene known to be contained in the building, firefighters wearing breathing apparatus were deployed and used a main jet but kept a safe distance from the incident. Persons at a nearby campsite were evacuated as a precautionary measure. A request was made for back up to assist St. Mary’s crews from the off islands, crews from Tresco, St. Martins, St. Agnes and Bryher were ferried across by the ambulance boat. Devon & Cornwall Police were in attendance and also the Coastguards were requested to assist crews at the scene.
At 0459 hours Devon & Cornwall Police declared a ‘Major Incident’ due to decreased resources on other islands and road closures in the vicinity and at that time teams of firefighters wearing breathing apparatus were using two main jets and two high pressure hosereel jets, Western Power were requested to attend the incident as well.
At 0521 hours a message was received stating that three farm buildings involved, fire in main building with two buildings coming off, fire contained in main timber clad building with a biomass unit in building, crews were continuing to damp down. Later a ground monitor was set up to cool the cylinder.
Update 1000 hours: Crews are still damping down at this time and using a Thermal Imaging Camera to monitor for hot spots. Off Island support are now returning to their home stations. A Fire Investigation Officer will be flying out later this morning on the Devon & Cornwall Police Helicopter to carry out an investigation as to the cause of the fire.



Don’t Become a Statistic!

Every year we attend numerous fires on farms, where buildings are completely destroyed by fire, often with the loss of large amounts of stock, straw, hay, farm machinery, chemicals and even livestock.
We have produced a booklet in partnership with Cornish Mutual and NFU Mutual to help farms comply with the new fire laws.

The booklet contains the information on the following:
• What you’re required to do by law
• Fire safety risk assessments
• If a fire breaks out
• Controlled burning
• Dangerous substances
• Arson

Related item: http://bit.ly/2knTvXm