Swansea tyre fire out after 22 days

A blaze within a Swansea factory containing some 5,000 tonnes of shredded tyres has been extinguished after three weeks. Fire crews had battled the fire at the former Mettoys factory since June 16 and gaining the upper hand required demolishing a good part of the building so that the burning waste could be removed an immersed in large tanks of water.

“This was a very complex fire which has posed a number of unique challenges for the agencies involved,” Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service group manager Roger Thomas told the BBC. “Similar fires elsewhere have burned for many months because the burning material is so difficult to extinguish. It would have been impossible to extinguish this fire using traditional fire-fighting techniques; we had to develop new methods to extinguish the fire.”

“This has been a fantastic team effort and by working collaboratively in such an effective way we have resolved this incident much quicker than we first anticipated,” Thomas added, thanking nearby residents and businesses for their patience. Officers from Swansea council and Environment Agency Wales will remain on-site to carry out a cleanup operation, and the extinguished waste will be transported to Tata Steel’s secure landfill facilities in Margam for temporary storage.