“In total, 20 petrol tanks were involved, each said to hold three million gallons of fuel.”
“The Buncefield depot is a major distribution terminal operated by Total and part-owned by Texaco, storing oil, petrol as well as kerosene which supplies airports across the region, including Heathrow and Luton.
The country’s fifth largest fuel distribution depot, it is also used by BP, Shell and British Pipeline.”
“The fire chief described the incident at the Buncefield fuel depot near Hemel Hempstead, after 0600 GMT, as possibly the largest in peacetime Europe.”
Photo by Gridlock
Photo by innkue
“The fire, which police believe was an accident, could burn for another day.”
Photo by Today is a good day
“About 2,000 people living near the site have been evacuated, while police have advised others to keep their windows and doors closed because of fumes”
“290 people have gone to a leisure centre while 50 others have been offered bed and breakfast accommodation.”
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“Many houses have been damaged, with some reporting feeling effects from the explosion as far away as Oxfordshire – while it was heard in a number of counties and even France and the Netherlands.”
Photo by Gridlock
BBC Story
More photos: Hemel Hempstead And Beyond Photo Pool
I suspect the terrorists at work since they said that they will attack oil depots and oil and gas supplies in America, Europe, Middle East and other regions of their network.
Comments made about the Herts Fire & Rescue Service being ill equiped to deal with a fire of this magnitude may hold some truth.
However let us not take away the credit from the first crews who arrived from Hemel Hempstead and district. Their dedication and courage was magnificent. I speak as a retired Firefighter who served 31 years with Herts 29 of them at Hemel. I watched the Terminal being built and the efforts put in by the late Ron Percival who was Stn Commander at the time it was constructed certainly gave us a wonderful insight and knowledge of the Terminal. He constantly asked the joint owners and opperators of the site to upgrade and supply more equipment. The main problem was cost and an attitude that the worst scenario would only ever be a single Tank fire. Perhaps the owners had got complacent having been relativly accident free for 30+ years all pointers would seem that there was a huge leak of fuel that quickley became lethal vapour, why did the vapour sensors not trigger an early alarm ?
An accident is allway the fault of someone and the opperators must be in line to take the blame for malpractice and shoody management and in summing up whilst the F.B.U were maybe right to criticise it was untimely. I would confidently state that there is not one Fire authority in the British Isles who could have handled that situation without help from other Fire Services.
Perhaps now is the time for all Fire Authorities with distribution depots on their Stn Ground to look at their plan of action.
I have set up a forum for anyone interested in the Buncefield explosion. It’s been running since the 11th and has become quite busy.
I am trying to keep it up to date with local news stories but any more posts would be welcome.
Chris