Image courtesy of South Wales Fire and Rescue Service

About 60 firefighters are tackling a large blaze at SiteServ Recycling's site in the Vale of Glamorgan, after the second outbreak of fire in less than a month.

Eight pumps, four water bowsers, and two hydraulic platforms are being used by fire crews from Cowbridge, Llantwit Major, and Bridgend to tackle the blaze at the old Georgia Pacific buildings in Vale Business Park, Llandow.

Fire crews in the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service (SWFRS) responded to the incident after receiving calls at 05:14 this morning that a large fire had broken out.

The fire service said that the ‘fully developed fire involved recycling materials’ and is advising the public to ‘keep doors and windows closed’. The entire industrial estate is closed due to the fire.

SWFRS said two seats of fire had been discovered in a building, and they are now working to prevent the fire from spreading to neighbouring buildings.

Speaking to BBC Radio Wales, Richard Matheson, Fire Service Area Manager and Incident Commander, said: "We brought the fire under control at quite an early stage but due to the nature of the materials involved, and the amount of materials involved, we'll be committed there for a number of days yet as we break in to the fire to slowly put it out.

"It's a plant that handles recycling materials. There's plastics, there's cardboard, lots of combustible materials and the way they're packaged in bales means that the fire becomes very, very deep-seated very quickly and we can pour all the water on it we like but it will run away unless we get in and actually dig the materials out.

"The structure of the building has collapsed so we used mechanical equipment to remove the sides of the building but that's the sort of thing we can only do during daylight hours, so we'll keep a watching brief on it overnight and during the daylight hours we'll work our way through and extinguish the fire fully in time."

SiteServ fire

This is the second fire in a month to hit the recycling company, after a fire involving an estimated 1,000 tonnes of mixed household wastebroke out at SiteServ Recycling’s plant building on Bonfire Night. Police said this fire ‘totally damaged’ the premises.

SWFRS had at that time urged residents within a two-mile radius of Llandow Industrial Estate to stay indoors over fears that asbestos in the roof of the building may have caught alight. However, the fire crew later reported that the roof had not been affected.

The cause of the fire is still unknown, but an investigation is now underway.

SiteServ Recycling employs around 200 people and was set up in 2002 by brothers Nigel and Philip England.

Tackling waste fires

The incidents follow on from the publication of new Environment Agency guidance aimed at reducing outbreaks of fire at waste storage sites.

Prepared in partnership with the Chief Fire Officers’ Association (CFOA), the new Technical Guidance Note (TGN) ‘Reducing Fire Risk at Sites Storing Combustible Materials’, identifies a range of measures that operators of waste storage sites should implement to minimise the risk of fire.

Waste site fires are commonplace, and earlier this year it was revealed that in the years 2001-2012, the average rate of fires at waste and recycling works came in at just under one per day.

Further to the environmental and social damage that waste fires cause, the cost of clearing up such fires is extensive; the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has revealed that emergency services in Scotland spent £15.9 million tackling 8,000 waste fires in 2012/13.