By ANEEKA SIMONIS
A BLAZE in Officer earlier this month was riddled with exploding gas cylinders and toxic material which made for “as dangerous a situation as you can get”, fire-fighters say.
A fire which broke out at a metal scrapping yard on the corner of Officer South Road and Rix Road about 6pm on Sunday 5 October took several CFA teams hours to contain due to dangers posed by the site.
“The property was absolutely scattered with LPG, automotive and domestic gas cylinders.
“Along with that were other combustibles such as tree branches, long grass and types that let off harmful fumes,” said incident controller and Officer CFA Captain Garry Barnes.
“All around the main heap were car parts and metals on top of the cylinders next to grass and blackberry bushes up to a metre high. The gas cylinders on site were exploding or venting which is as bad as it can get for a fire-fighter,” he said.
Mr Barnes said it was not the first time the CFA have been called to the scrapping yard.
Having attended the site “numerous times over the years”, Mr Barnes said the yard posed a real danger to residents and that council needed to step in.
“During the last fire there around 12 months ago, I showed a lot of concern to the CFA and the council regarding the fact that the site poses real dangers to residents,” Mr Barnes said.
“I insisted that council came down … my aim is for them to try get the property cleaned up.
“They certainly shouldn’t be storing cylinders like that … it’s a nightmare for fire-fighters to do anything,” he said.
The nightmarish scene took several CFA crews hours to clean up with the help of a heavy-duty hydraulic platform from Dandenong to attack the flames from above.
“We had to stay right out of the premises … we didn’t know what chemicals were coming out of the exploding cylinders and there was a lot of other nasties such as tyres and paint letting off toxic smoke,” Mr Barnes said.
Council’s Manager for Development and Compliance Services Brett Jackson said the site was under investigation.
Mr Barnes hopes council takes action before bushfire season sets in.
“Summer time concerns us with the site being in a bushy area.
“If the grass were dried out like it will be in summer, it would have been very very difficult to fight,” he said.
The cause of the blaze is yet to be determined but Mr Barnes said it was likely to have been caused by an unextinguished burn-off.
