Durban - Questions around fire safety emerged as an industrial inferno continued to burn in the south of Durban for a third day
on Sunday.
It appears that the water supply was not available when the building on South Coast Road went up in flames on Friday morning; the closest fire hydrants were apparently dry and the fire suppression system in the warehouse may not have been up to scratch.
Key sources at the scene of the blaze said a valve on the main booster pump was turned off on Friday, possibly because renovations to the roof were under way.
They also said that when firefighters arrived at the scene, there was no pressure in the fire hydrants, and furthermore the fire
suppression system, in their opinion, may not have been correctly designed.
The massive 52-acre warehouse complex, believed to have been the biggest in the southern hemisphere before it was razed, was being used to store a variety of products, including plastic polymers, wax panels, phosphate, fertiliser, chemicals and lucerne.
Investigations are still under way, but it is understood that a single, generic fire suppression system might have been in place.
However, sources said the different products in the warehouse all burned at different temperatures, so as per recommended practice, multiple systems each specifically designed for the different fire it was intended to suppress, should have been installed.
It is also understood that the fire suppression system, which was supposed to be checked annually, was last examined in 2015 and that there had been another fire at the warehouse recently.
Transnet spokesperson Molatwane Likhethe yesterday confirmed that the property on
which the fire occurred, did in
fact, belong to the parastatal.
“We immediately activated our emergency procedures, including the evacuation of everyone from the property.
“One employee was injured and taken to the nearest hospital with minor burns, and has been
discharged.”
Likhethe confirmed that the facility was a storage warehouse for goods that were set for various destinations, but did not comment on whether safety standards might have been compromised.
“Our emergency teams are working closely with the city’s emergency services to extinguish the fire.
“We have put together a team to investigate the cause and the cost of the damage.
“The cause of the fire is unknown at this stage and we do not want to speculate.”
A representative of the company understood to have been leasing the property from Transnet on Sunday declined to comment.
Ethekwini Municipality spokesperson Mandla Nsele on Sunday referred all queries to deputy fire chief Enoch Mchunu, who in turned referred them to divisional commander Alfred Newman.
Newman said he was not at the scene on Friday and could not comment on issues regarding the fire hydrants.
He did, however, say that firefighters had managed to contain the blaze on Saturday morning and had prevented it from spreading.
“At the moment we have around five crews, that’s about 30 men and women, dealing with extinguishing the fire.
“We are still going to be here for several days.”
Hundreds of firefighters, officers from the SAPS Search and Rescue Unit and medics from private ambulance services, including Rescue Care and Netcare 911, have for the last three days been battling the blaze.
One of them told The Mercury that it had been a massive challenge.
He said the first thing firefighters tried to do was to cut a line across the fire and form a fire break.
“But for the first 24 hours, they couldn’t make the line meet.
“They started lines from the west and from the east, but winds from the north made it difficult for them to connect them.”
He said they had worked to isolate the chemicals in the warehouse, but had they not been able to, it could have resulted in a disastrous explosion, which would have affected residential areas, including Bellair, Umbilo and Congella.
One civilian and at least two firefighters have been admitted to hospital since the fire started at around 9.30am on Friday.
It is believed that people on site were using a cutting torch at the time and this may have been how the fire started. It began in the west of the warehouse and spread towards the north and south before engulfing much of the facility.