Fire crews were called to the BCR Global Textiles recycling unit on Greets Green Road, West Bromwich at 1:52 yesterday morning (6 January) to tackle a large blaze.

At its peak 10 fire engines and 60 fire fighters fought the flames, using seven main jets and two hydraulic platform water towers.

By 7:20 on Sunday morning fire crews were able to scale down their presence. There were no reported injuries.

West Midlands Fire Service spokesman, Jeremy Sharpe, said: “Currently we have one fire engine only in attendance with crews using a thermal imaging camera and one jet to check for and extinguish any remaining hot spots."

Fire Station Commander Jason Campbell added that there was an ‘inward roof collapse’.

“At its height there was approximately 80 per cent of the building involved in fire. It's full of textiles because they operate a recycled clothing business from here.

"It was unsafe for us to put firefighters inside so we then moved to an external attack and used the aerial platform to apply water from a safe position outside.

"Obviously, being a flammable material, [clothes] burn quite readily so we were getting quite a high energy and heat output from that fire that led to the collapse. Ultimately the building's going to have to be pulled apart so we can get in to put out any remaining hotspots."

Business as usual

Managing Director of BCR Global Textiles, Maxine Sault told Resource that the fire is now “more or less out” and that business is continuing as usual.

She added: “The fire fighters managed to save the brick office building at the front. The building behind is definitely gone. There’s another unit behind that that we sort from – they managed to save that. So from 7 o’clock this morning we were able to start sorting again. We’ve got another yard premises around the corner from Greets Green Road where all the trucks are stored, so the collections still carried on yesterday as normal.

“We’ve had to find another warehouse to store our stock. It’s just getting everything back to up and running now.”

Sault added that she was still uncertain of the exact extent of the damage, but that the fire crews had "saved a lot of the business".

West Midlands Fire Service said that the cause of the fire is currently unknown, but a joint fire and police investigation is now underway.

Greets Green Road was closed at the peak of the fire, but has now reopened to the public.

Fire at Welsh waste transfer station

Elsewhere, officers from Environment Agency Wales (EAW) have been investigating whether any environmental permits were breached after a fire broke out at a Welsh waste transfer station in Nantyglo, Blaenau Gwent, on Saturday (5 January).

According to the EAW, a large quantity of mixed waste at the site caught fire and continued to burn over the weekend. South Wales Fire and Rescue Service tackled the blaze, the cause of which is currently unknown.

A spokesperson from Environment Agency Wales said: “Our main priority at the moment is to work with the Fire and Rescue Service to make sure that the fire risk has passed and that local people and the nearby environment are protected. Once this has happened, we will then need to look closely at what caused the fire.

“If we find evidence to suggest that the company were in breach of their environmental permit, we will take the necessary action against them.”

Agency officers on site to monitor any environmental damage but no impact has so far been discovered.