West Midlands Fire Service have declared a major incident at a fire that has destroyed 8,000 tonnes of cardboard at Smurfit Kappa’s Nechells mill in Birmingham.
Crews from across the West Midlands have been tackling the blaze in the ongoing incident.
They expect to be on site dealing with the fire, and trying to understand the cause of it, for at least 48 hours.
West Midlands Fire Service area commander Sam Burton said: “We are dealing with a large scale incident. We currently have 110 of our staff here on site and are working closely with our college in the police and ambulance service.
“When we arrive on scene we found there was 8,000 tonnes of compressed cardboard on fire…
“…We will be here for some time.”
West Midlands Fire Service also noted that the conditions at the site were challenging due to the amount of smoke created, and local residents were asked to keep windows closed.
Part of the firefighting plan included use of a specialist high volume water pumping unit. At one stage, this unit was pumping and relaying 8,000 litres of water per minute from a nearby canal.
More pictures from the fire
