Newsletter
May 2002Dye Warehouse Fire
On Friday 5 April at approximately 1.15 pm lunchtime whilst I was home for a quick lunch I noticed smoke. A few seconds later the phone rang. FIRE IN THE DYE WAREHOUSE !!! I raced up to the dye warehouse only to see about one quarter of it engulfed in flames.
 I summoned a few of the men and I started to put together a battle plan to try to stop the fire. The first thing that had to be done was to close all the doors to minimize the amount of wind/draft and oxygen entering the dye warehouse.
Our 7000 l fire tender was on the scene within a few minutes and was put into full operation with all water cannons blazing.
Initially our thought was to try and contain the fire to one part of the building so we were right inside with hoses to try combat the flames. It was incredibly hot and smoky. The smoke was so thick that I could not even see my hand in front of my face, never mind where the flames were. Well, it was a rather obvious decision to get out of the building ASAP to avoid personal injury.
The fire spread much quicker that we thought it would. This was largely due to the fact that there was a lot of dried material in the warehouse. The fire engulfed the laboratory where some chemicals were warehoused. This gave rise to some rather nasty odours and a heavy thick smoke.
While all this was happening our one truck was brought up to the chemical warehouse. One of the labourers ripped the door open so as to get the chemicals out. At lightning speed a human chain was formed and all the chemicals were safely removed.
Our fire tender was bound to run out of water at some stage or another and it did. Off we went to the closest dam which is luckily very nearby. It takes approximately 10 minutes to refill the 7000 litres of water. Upon our return to the dye warehouse we were pleasantly surprised to see that the local fire brigade which had to come from 35 km had arrived with 2 trucks and an LDV with a water tanker on the back of it. They also had to go and refill their tankers.
 It took a mere 45 minutes for the whole warehouse to burn down. We put about 45000 litres of water onto the fire to try save the building. Once we had established that we would be unable to save the dye warehouse plan number two came into action. We would try and contain the fire to the dye warehouse only. Thankfully our other warehouse are not too nearby so we managed to save them from being gutted.
In the end we managed to save only part of our bleaching section which was separated by a concrete wall from the rest of the warehouse. Was it not for the help of the Caledon Fire brigade we would most probably have lost the entire building and its contents.
By late afternoon our insurance broker and an assessor were already on the scene to assess the damage. By Sunday morning a forensic assessor had flown in from Johannesburg to try and establish the cause of the fire. Low and behold, he did. It was established that an electrical fault had caused a contactor to arc and stay closed. This caused an element in a dye bath to overheat and that started the fire. The forensic assessor estimated that the fire had burnt at approximately 800 deg.
 We are very grateful that no one was injured and that there was no loss of human life or injury. It is however sad that we have lost all the stock, a lot of which was ready for export.
Subsequently we have set up a temporary dye area in another warehouse. We are slowly starting to catch up on all the products which we lost. The bleaching department continues at a reduced rate. The absorption department has also been moved to various areas to continue production. A large car port now doubles up as a production site.
We look upon this as a blessing in disguise. We can now rebuild the entire facility to accommodate a better work-flow and work-rate.
It will obviously take quite a while for us to rebuild the new setup. We ask that, in the meanwhile, you please bear with us. We will do our utmost to provide you with our best quality and service as in the past.
Richard Middelmann
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