A fire at a recycling plant in the Vale of Glamorgan is still being fought by fire crews, after alarms were first raised on Sunday.

Around 50 firefighters were called to the plant run by domestic and commercial recycling company Siteserv Recycling on Llandow Trading Estate, near Cowbridge, shortly before 4pm.

A spokesman for South Wales Fire and Rescue Service said that the “large, severe” fire had taken over a building measuring 50 metres wide and 25 metres high. Upon being called to the site on Sunday, fire crews had worked quickly to “prevent the fire from spreading to many hundreds of tonnes of waste material stored nearby”.

A fire investigation team for the service has visited the site and is working with South Wales Police to investigate the cause of the fire.

Environmental impact of fire being monitored

Natural Resources Wales (NRW) is closely monitoring the environmental impact of the incident after concerns were raised about the plume of smoke arising from the fire.

The Welsh Government-sponsored body is advising Public Health Wales on the air quality issues created by the plume.

It has also constructed a temporary wall at the southwest corner of the site to keep contaminated firewater on-site and prevent pollution of nearby watercourses.

This contaminated water will be reused to tackle the fire, but will be taken off the site if volumes become too great.

In a statement, Vale of Glamorgan Council said: “Following on from discussion with Public Health Wales, we can confirm that current advice remains the same: keep doors and windows closed and minimise the amount of time spent outside.”

Bill Purvis, Natural Resources Planning Manager at NRW, said: “We’re working closely with the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service to minimise the impact of this fire on both the environment and nearby people.

“Once the fire has been fully extinguished and we are satisfied that the site is safe, we’ll be contributing to the investigation into what may have caused this, and establishing what steps can be taken to reduce the likelihood of it happening again.”

Previous Siteserv fires

Siteserv suffered from two fires in 2013, one on the Llandow site and one at the nearby Vale Business Park. The first fire, at the Llandow Trading Estate, destroyed one building while severely damaging another. The second destroyed the entire Siteserv building as well as ‘substantial quantities of plant, machinery and ancillary equipment’.

As a result, the company, which had employed almost 200 staff, entered administration, eventually transferring operations to two hangars on the Llandow estate as a separate company Siteserv Recycling, saving 80 jobs.

Although no cause has been announced for either of the two previous fires, police ruled out the possibility that they had been started deliberately.

WISH guidance

Fires at waste sites are commonplace, with figures released in 2013 showing that between 2001 and 2012, the average rate of fires at waste and recycling works came in at just under one per day.

In an attempt to prevent fires from occurring, the Waste Industry Safety and Health (WISH) Forum has issued new guidance to help waste site operators reduce fire risk.

Endorsed by the Chief Fire Officers’ Association (CFOA), and developed with input from the Environment Agency (EA), the Environmental Services Association (ESA), the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the Health & Safety Laboratory (HSL), and other bodies, the guidance outlines how best to safely manage the storage of materials susceptible to combustion.

The Operations Director of the CFOA, Roy Wilsher, said that the guidance was “hugely useful”.

Find out how the CFOA suggests the waste industry can reduce the risk of fire.