Fire at Bandvulc, but business continues

Bandvulc Tyres suffered a serious fire on Friday 5 August, but the company reports that business is able to continue. According to a statement released by the company, the fire broke out just outside one of its tyre production areas, which spread into the building through the roof. However “damage to production machinery and stock was thankfully a lot less than had been expected,” Bandvulc representatives explained. BBC news reported that more than 40 firefighters spent the night tackling the fire, but no-one was injured.

The management has even managed to keep good humour in amidst the challenging circumstances, as the statement continued: “As a rubber company you’d expect us to bounce back and amazingly, as of Monday 8 August production is back up and running.”

And the management continued by praising the swift actions of staff and emergency services: “While serious the fire looked far worse than it was. At the moment we are dealing with the aftermath of a lot of water as our sprinkler system worked perfectly, along with our fire shutter doors. Everyone acted as they should and no one was injured or worse. This is a great credit to those involved and to the level of fire precautions and control we have in place. We’d also like to express our thanks to the emergency services who responded swiftly and in force.”

Emergency services were alerted to the blaze at Bandvulc Tyres just after 16:30 BST on Friday 5 August. At one point, smoke blew across the nearby A38 and workers at other local businesses were told to leave the area.

According to Bandvulc within minutes of the alarm BTC’s disaster recovery plans “sprang into action” and staff were relocated to the backup call centre in Plymouth in order to manage tyre breakdown call outs. “Staff remained at this location throughout the weekend whilst it was all hands to the pump to get the fire damaged area cleaned up and repairs in place to ensure we could hit the ground running on Monday morning,” the company statement explained.

The incident is now subject to an ongoing fire investigation into the cause, but Bandvulc confirmed that the main manufacturing area remains in one piece and reportedly only suffers from water damage. BBC News quoted the Fire Service as saying that about 50 per cent of the 30 metre by 20 metre (100 foot by 66 foot) building was damaged by the fire.

Bandvulc has a disaster recovery procedure, which was enacted in this instance.

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