VN24 - 06-02-2023 (D/M/Y) - Werl / Germany - A fire incident in an electroplating company, which has only existed at this location for just under 3 years, got completely out of control for the Werl Volunteer Fire Department under the direction of Fire Chief Karsten Korte in the afternoon in the industrial park 'Am Maifeld'. Firefighters had to be called off from the interior attack, since it is known that there are acids and toxic liquids in an electroplating plant, about which the present employees and the company boss could have provided information. Afterwards the extinguishing activities were obviously approximately stopped and the building left to its fate, while the fire department leadership took care of the production of beautiful press photos and supplied the surrounding newspaper editors directly from the scene of action by Internet. The thermal processing in the hall by the still existing fire sources led approximately then after two hours to a complete runaway ignition. Subsequently, the fire chief ordered a total of 350 (!) firefighters, mostly from surrounding towns and communities, with their special vehicles to the scene of the fire, the majority of which, however, were not assigned any tasks. Among others, one of the airfield fire-fighting vehicles FLF 80/125-10 Z8.2 came from the Paderborn airfield, almost 60 kilometers away, but its deployment was initially terminated after about 1.5 minutes, when the 12,500 liters of fire-fighting water it carried were used up. Obviously, no thought had been given to a sufficient follow-up supply of extinguishing water. A private local freight forwarder then offered one of its tanker trucks with about 30,000 liters of water to refill the airfield fire truck at least twice. Afterwards, the volunteer fire department from Lipetal, 25 km away, saved the situation by arriving in the evening with two real tankers, specially purchased for poor water supply, to shuttle to a nearby hydrant. These vehicles, easily converted from used milk tankers for firefighting purposes, can carry 15,000 liters each and are themselves equipped with a powerful centrifugal pump as well as a piston pump. The entire business became a total loss with damage running into millions of dollars. Fortunately, a metal construction company located in the same building complex was protected by a massive firewall and was held almost harmless.
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